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15  S  K  \  C  I.  C  »         \ 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OP 
CALIFORNIA     . 


IRELAND'S  Case  Stated 


IN   REPLY  TO 


MR.    FROUDE, 


BY  THE 


VERY    EEY.   T.  E".   BURKE,   O.P. 


'  Nec  tecum  possum  vivere  nee  sine  te." 


NEW   YORK : 
P.    M.    HAYERTY,   PUBLISHER, 

5  Barclay  Street. 
1878. 


5  3/t/^fX 


Entered  according  to  act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1872,  by 

P.  M.  HAVERTY, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Imprimatur 


F^.  M.  D.  Lilly,  O.P. 
F.  I.  R.  Meagher,  O.P. 


LOAN  STACK 

LaNQE,   LnTLK     dt    HlLLMAW, 
PRINTKRB,   KLKCTROTYPKRS   AND   STSRKOTYFKIUI, 

108  TO  114  WoosTKK  Strkit,  N.  Y. 


i>A  911 
iS7i 


PREFACE. 


When  I  was  first  asked  to  reply  to  Mr.  Froude*s  lec- 
tures, I  was  very  unwilling  to  do  it.  As  a  priest,  I 
felt  reluctant  to  enter  upon  a  controversy  which  prom- 
ised to  be  purely  secular.  As  an  Irishman,  I  thought 
that  Mr.  Froude's  was  only  one  other  utterance  of 
those  old  anti-Irish  calumnies  which  it  has  been  the 
fashion  of  English  writers  to  invent  and  repeat,  and 
which  have  been  discussed,  answered,  refuted  a  hun- 
dred times.  My  friends,  however,  urged  their  request, 
and  Mr.  Froude's  lectures  took  a  tone  so  damaging  at 
once  to  the  Irish  character,  and  so  bitterly  hostile  to 
the  Catholic  religion,  that  I  felt  justified  in  attempting 
to  answer  him  in  defense  of  my  faith  and  my  country. 

I  cannot  claim  for  my  lectures  anything  like  com- 
pleteness as  an  answer  to  Mr.  Froude.  The  call  upon 
me  was  so  sudden,  and  the  time  so  short ;  the  ground 
which  Mr.  Froude  covered  was  so  extensive,  and  the 
means  of  meeting  him — such  as  authorities,  references, 
etc. — so  limited  on  my  part,  that  I  am  far  from  satis- 
fied with  my  work,  and  I  have  heard  with  pleasure 

330 


6  Preface. 

that  Mr.  John  Mitchel,  whose  great  historical  knowl- 
edge, vigorous  style,  and  undoubted  love  for  Ireland, 
render  him  eminently  fitted  for  the  task,  has  under- 
taken in  a  series  of  papers  to  meet  and  refute  the 
views  of  the  English  historian.  The  warmth  of  de- 
bate led  Mr.  Froude,  in  his  rejoinder  to  me,  not  only 
into  a  temporary  forgetfulness  of  the  usual  courtesies 
of  gentlemen,  but  also  into  assertions  which  have  been 
repudiated  and  disproved  ;  such  for  example  as  making 
the  Catholic  Church  answerable  for  the  bloody  edicts 
of  Charles  the  Fifth,  a  monarch  who  never  hesitated  to 
persecute  the  Church  and  her  head  whenever  policies 
dictated,  who  coquetted  with  the  reformers  of  the 
Reformation,  until  policy  dictated  an  opposite  course, 
and  whose  army  committed  more  terrible  ravages  on 
Rome,  than  any  that  we  read  of — Goth,  Vandal,  or 
Lombard. 

The  Church,  however,  that  for  nineteen  hundred 
years  has  withstood  and  conquered  every  opponent,  is 
not  likely  to  fall  before  the  small,  though  poisoned 
spear  of  a  Froude  ;  and  the  Irish  nationality,  which 
has  survived  all  the  efforts  of  England  and  all 
the  calumnies  of  her  writers  for  seven  hundred 
years,  is  not  likely  to  be  withered  up  by  the  scorn,  nor 
made  effete  by  the  sneering  sympathy  of  such  a  man 
as  he  who  now  stands  before  the  American  world, 
pitying,  reviling,  scorning  the  Irish  people  and  their 
history. 


CONTENTS, 


LECTURE   I. 
The  Norman  Invasion,       .       .       .       .  9 


PAGE 


LECTURE   II. 
Ireland    under  the   Tudors,        .        .  59 

LECTURE   III. 
Ireland  under   Cromwell,        .        .        .96 

LECTURE*  IV. 
Grattan  and  THE  Volunteers,         .        .         152 

LECTURE  V. 
Ireland  since  the  Union,        ...        199 
Appendix,  229 


LECTURE  I. 
THE  NORMAN  INVASION. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  It  is  a  strange  fact  that 
the  old  battle  that  has  been  raging  for  seven  hundred 
years,  should  be  renewed  again  so  far  away  from  the  old 
land.  The  question  on  which  I  am  come  to  speak  to  you 
this  evening  has  been  argued  at  many  a  council  board, 
debated  in  many  a  Parliament,  disputed  on  many  a  well- 
fought  field,  and  is  not  yet  decided — the  question  be- 
tween England  and  Ireland.  Amongst  the  visitors  to 
America,  who  came  over  this  year,  there  was  one  gen- 
tleman, distinguished  in  Europe  for  his  style  of  writing 
and  for  his  historical  knowledge,  the  author  of  several 
works  which  have  created  a  profound  sensation,  at  least 
for  their  originality.  Mr.  Froude  has  frankly  stated  that 
he  came  over  to  this  country  to  deal  with  England  and 
with  the  Irish  question,  viewing  it  from  an  English  stand- 
point ;  that  like  a  true  man  he  came  to  America  to  make 
the  best  case  that  he  could  for  his  own  country ;  that 
he  came  to  state  that  case  to  an  American  public  as 


10  Lecture  /. 

to  a  grand  jury,  and  to  demand  a  verdict  from  them,  the 
most  extraordinary  that  was  ever  yet  demanded  from 
any  people,  namely,  the  declaration  that  England  was 
right  in  the  manner  in  which  she  has  treated  my  native 
land  for  seven  hundred  years. '  It  seems,  according  to 
this  learned  gentleman,  that  we  Irish  have  been  badly 
treated — so  much  he  confesses  ;  but  he  puts  in  as  a  plea 
that  we  only  got  what  we  deserved,  .  It  is  true,  he  says, 
that  we  have  governed  them  badly ;  the  reason  is,  be- 
cause it  was  impossible  to  govern  them  rightly.  It  is 
true  that  we  have  robbed  them ;  the  reason  is,  because 
it  was  a  pity  to  leave  them  their  own,  they  made 
such  a  bad  use  of  it.  It  is  true  we  have  persecuted 
them ;  the  reason  is,  persecution  was  a  fashion  of  the 
time,  and  the  order  of  the  day.  On  these  pleas  there 
is  not  a  criminal  in  prison  to-day  in  the  United  States 
thSt  should  not  instantly  get  his  freedom  by  acknowl- 
edging his  crime  and  pleading  some  extenuating  cir- 
cumstance. Our  ideas  about  Ireland  have  been  all 
wrong,  it  seems.  Seven  hundred  years  ago  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  time  demanded  the  foundation  of  a 
strong  British  Empire ;  in  order  to  do  this,  Ireland 
had  to  be  conquered,  and  Ireland  was  conquered. 
Since  that  time  the  one  ruling  idea  in  the  English 
mind  has  been  to  do  all  the  good  that  they  could  for 
the  Irish.  Their  legislation  and  their  action  has  not 
always  been  tender,  but  it  has  been  always  beneficent. 
They  sometimes  were  severe,  but  they  were  severe  to 
us  for  our  own  good ;  and  the  difficulty  of  England 
has  been  that  the  Irish,  during  these  long  hundreds 


The  Norman  Invasion,  1 1 

of  years,  never  understood  their  own  interests,  or 
knew  what  was  for  their  own  advantage.  Now,  the 
American  mind  is  enlightened,  and  henceforth  no 
Irishman  must  complain  of  the  past;  in  this  new  light 
in  which  Mr.  Froude  puts  it  before  us.  Now,  the 
amiable  gentleman  tells  us  that  what  has  been  our 
fate  in  the  past,  he  greatly  fears  we  must  reconcile 
ourselves  to  in  the  future.  He  comes  to  tells  us  his 
version  of  the  history  of  Ireland,  and  he  also  comes  to 
solve  Ireland's  difficulty,  and  to  lead  us  out  of  all  the 
miseries  that  have  been  our  lot  for  hundreds  of  years. 
When  he  came  many  persons  questioned  what  was 
the  motive  or  the  reason  of  his  coming?  I  have  heard 
people  speaking  all  around  me,  and  assigning  to  the 
learned  gentleman  this  motive  or  that.  Some  people 
said  he  was  an  emissary  of  the  English  Government ; 
that  they  sent  him  here  because  they  were  beginning 
to  be  afraid  of  the  rising  power  of  Ireland  in  this  great 
nation  ;  that  they  saw  here  eight  millions  of  Irishmen 
by  birth,  and  perhaps  fourteen  millions  by  descent ; 
and  that  they  knew  enough  of  the  Irish  to  realize  that 
the  Almighty  God  blessed  them  always  with  an  ex- 
traordinary power,  not  only  to  preserve  themselves, 
but  to  spread  themselves,  until,  in  a  few  years,  not 
fourteen,  but  fifty  millions  of  descendants  of  Irish 
blood  and  of  Irish  race  will  be  in  this  land.  ^  Ac- 
cording to  those  who  thus  surmise,  England  wants  to 
check  the  sympathy  of  the  American  people  for  their 
Irish  fellow-citizens,  and  it  was  considered  that  the 
best  way  to  effect  this  was  to  send  a  learned  man  with 


1 2  Lecture  L 

a  plausible  story  to  this  country — a  man  with  a  singu- 
lar power  of  viewing  facts  in  the  light  in  which  he 
wishes  to  view  them  and  put  them  before  others ;  a 
man  with  the  extraordinary  faculty  of  so  mixing  up 
these  facts,  that  many  simple-minded  people  will  look 
upon  them,  as  he  puts  them  before  them,  as  true,  and 
whose  mission  it  was  to  alienate  the  mind  of  America 
from  Ireland  to-day,  by  showing  what  an  impractica- 
ble, obstinate,  accursed  race  we  are. 

Others,  again,  surmised  that  the  learned  gentleman 
came  for  another  purpose ;  they  said :  *'  England  is 
in  the  hour  of  her  weakness ;  she  is  tottering  fast  and 
visibly  to  her  ruin  ;  the  disruption  of  that  old  empire  is 
evidently  approaching  ;  she  is  to-day  cut  off,  without  an 
ally  in  Europe.  Her  army  a  cipher  ;  her  fleet — accord- 
ing to  Mr.  Reade,  a  great  authority  on  this  question — 
nothing  to  be  compared  to  the  rival  fleet  of  the  great 
Russian  power  now  growing  up.  When  France  was 
paralyzed  by  her  late  defeat,  England  lost  her  best  ally. 
The  three  emperors,  in  their  meeting  the  other  day, 
contemptuously  ignored  her,  and  they  settled  the  af- 
fairs of  the  world,  without  as  much  as  mentioning  the 
name  of  that  kingdom  which  was  once  so  powerful. 
Her  resources  of  coal  and  iron  are  failing ;  her  people 
are  discontented,  and  she  is  showing  every  sign  of  de- 
cay.'* ^  Thus  did  some  people  argue  that  England  was 
anxious  for  an  American  alliance,  for  they  said,  ''  What 
would  be  more  natural  than  that  the  old,  tottering  em- 
pire should  seek  to  lean  on  the  strong,  mighty,  vigor- 
ous young  arm  of  America?*'  and  Mr.  Froude's  mis- 


The  Norman  Invasion.  13 

sion,  according  to  these  persons,  seemed  intended  to 
prepare  the  way  for  such  alliance. 

I  have  heard  others  say  that  the  gentleman  came 
over  to  this  country  on  the  invitation  of  a  little  clique 
of  sectarian  bigots.  Men  who,  feeling  that  the  night 
of  religious  bigotry  and  sectarian  bitterness  is  fast 
coming  to  a  close  before  the  increasing  light  of  Ameri- 
can intelligence  and  education,  would  fain  prolong  the 
darkness  for  an  hour  or  two,  by  whatever  help  Mr. 
Froude  could  lend  them. 

But  I  protest  to  you,  gentlemen,  here  to-night,  that 
I  have  heard  all  these  motives  assigned  to  this  learned 
man,  without  giving  them  the  least  attention.  I  be- 
lieve Mr.  Froude's  motives  to  be  simple,  straightfor- 
ward, honorable,  and  patriotic.  I  am  willing  to  give 
him  credit  for  the  highest  motives,  and  I  consider 
him  perfectly  incapable  of  lending  himself  to  any 
base  or  sordid  proceedings,  from  a  base  or  sordid 
motive.  But,  as  the  learned  gentleman's  motives 
have  been  so  freely  canvassed  and  criticised — and 
I  believe,  indeed,  in  many  cases,  misinterpreted — so 
my  own  motives  in  coming  here  to-night  may  be 
perhaps  also  misinterpreted  and  misunderstood,  un- 
less I  state  them  clearly  and  plainly.  As  he 
has  been  said  to  come  as  an  emissary  of  the  English 
Government,  so  I  may  be  said,  perhaps,  to  appear  as 
an  emissary  of  rebellion  and  revolution.  As  he  is 
supposed  by  some  to  have  the  sinister  motive  of 
alienating  the  American  mind  from  the  Irish  citizen- 
ship of  the  States,  so  I   may  be  suspected  of  endea- 


14  Lecture  L 

voring  to  excite  religious  or  political  hatred.  Now,  I 
protest  these  are  not  my  motives.  I  come  here  to- 
night simply  to  defend  the  honor  of  Ireland  in  her 
history.  I  come  here  to-night  lest  any  man  should 
think  that  in  this  our  day,  or  in  any  day,  Ireland  is 
to  be  left  without  a  son  who  will  speak  for  the  mother 
that  bore  him. 

And,  first  of  all,  I  hold  that  Mr.  Froude  is  unfit  for 
the  task  that  he  has  undertaken,  for  three  great 
reasons.  First,  because  I  find  in  the  writings  of  this 
learned  gentleman  that  he  has  solemnly  and  emphati- 
cally declared  that  he  despairs  of  ever  finding  a  remedy 
for  Ireland,  and  he  gives  it  up  as  a  bad  job. 
Here  are  his  words,  written  in  one  of  his  essays  a  few 
years  ago:  "The  present  hope,"  he  says,  *^is  that 
by  assiduous  justice,  that  is,  by  conceding  everything 
that  the  Irish  please  to  ask,  we  shall  disarm  that  en- 
mity and  convince  them  of  our  good  will.  It  may  be 
so.  There  are  persons  sanguine  enough  to  hope  that 
the  Irish  will  be  so  moderate  in  what  they  demand, 
and  the  English  so  liberal  in  what  they  will  grant,  that 
at  last  we  shall  fling  ourselves  into  each  other's  arms  m 
tears  of  mutual  forgiveness.  I  do  not  share  that  ex- 
pectation. It  is  more  likely  that  they  will  press  their 
importunities  till  we  turn  upon  them  and  refuse  to 
yield  further.  There  will  be  a  struggle  once  more, 
and  either  the  emigration  to  America  will  increase  in 
volume  till  it  has  carried  the  entire  race  beyond  our 
reach,  or  in  some  shape  or  other  they  will  again  have 
to  be  coerced  into  submission," 


The  Norman  Invasion.  1 5 

Banish  them  or  coerce  them  !  There  is  the  true 
Englishman  speaking.  My  only  remedy,  he  emphat- 
ically says,  my  only  hope,  my  only  prospect  of  a 
future  for  Ireland  is,  let  them  go  to  America  ;  have 
done  with  the  race  altogether,  and  give  us  an  Ireland 
at  last  such  as  we  have  labored  to  make  it  for  seven 
hundred  years,  a  desert  and  a  solitude.  Or,  if  they 
remain  at  home  they  will  have  to  be  coerced  into 
submission.  I  hold  that  this  gentleman  has  no  right 
to  come  to  America  to  tell  the  American  people  and 
the  Irish  \x\  America  that  he  can  cast  the  horoscope 
of  Ireland's  future.  He  has  acknowledged  his  ina- 
bility and  unfitness  for  this  task  m  the  words  I  have 
just  quoted. 

The  original  sin  of  the  Englishman  in  his  dealings 
with  the  Irish  people  and  their  history  is  his  contempt 
of  them.  The  average  Englishman  despises  the 
Irishman,  looks  down  upon  him  as  a  being  almost  in- 
ferior in  nature.  This  feeling  may  not  be  expressed, 
but  it  lies  deep  though  dormant  in  the  hearts  of  most 
Englishmen,  even  though  they  be  unconscious  of  its 
existence.  *  I  make  no  distinction  of  English,  Catho- 
lic or  Protestant.  I  speak  from  the  experience  of 
intercourse,  and  I  believe  the  feeling  to  be  common 
to  all. .  I  know  many  Englishmen,  amiable,  generous, 
charming  characters,  who  would  not  cherish  such  a 
feeling  consciously,  nor  express  it  for  the  whole  world; 
yet  I  have  seen  it  come  forth  from  them  in  a  thousand 
forms,  as  if  it  were  their  very  nature.  I  mention  this 
not  to   excite   animosity  or  to   create  bad  blood   or 


1 6  Lecture  L 

bitter  feeling  ;  no.  I  protest  this  is  not  my  meaning; 
but  I  mention  this  because  I  am  convinced  it  lies  at 
the  very  root  of  this  antipathy  and  of  that  hatred  be- 
tween the  English  and  Irish,  which  seems  to  be  in- 
curable ;  and  I  verily  believe  that  until  that  feeling  is 
destroyed,  you  never  can  have  cordial  union  between 
these  two  countries ;  and  the  only  way  to  destroy  it  is 
by  raising  Ireland,  through  justice  and  by  home  legis- 
lation, that  she  may  attain  such  a  position  that  she 
will  enforce  and  command  the  respect  of  her  English 
fellow-subjects.  Mr.  Froude,  himself,  who,  I  am 
sure,  is  incapable  of  any  ungenerous  sentiment  towards 
any  man  or  any  people,  is  an  actual  living  example  of 
that  feeling  of  contempt  of  which  I  speak.  In  Novem- 
ber, 1856,  this  learned  gentleman  addressed  a  Scottish 
assembly  in  Edinburgh ;  the  subject  of  his  address  was, 
**  The  Influence  of  the  Reformation  on  the  Scottish 
Character."  According  to  him,  it  made  the  Scotch 
the  finest  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Originally 
fine,  they  never  got  their  last  touch — that  made  them 
as  it  were,  archangels  amongst  men — until  the  holy 
hand  of  John  Knox  was  laid  upon  them.  On  that 
occasion  the  learned  gentleman  introduced  himself  to 
his  Scottish  audience  in  the  following  words :  *'  I  have 
undertaken,"  he  says,  **to  speak  this  evening  on  the 
effects  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  and  I  consider 
myself  a  very  bold  person  to  have  come  here  on  any 
such  undertaking ;  in  the  first  place,  the  subject  is  one 
with  which  it  is  presumptuous  for  a  stranger  to  med- 
dle.    Great  national  movements  can   only  be  under- 


The  Norman  Invasion.  1 7 

stood  properly  by  the  people  whose  disposition  they 
represent.  We  say  ourselves  about  our  own  history, 
that  Englishmen  only  can  properly  comprehend  it.  It 
is  the  same  with  every  considerable  nation.  They 
work  out  their  own  political  and  spiritual  lives  through 
tempers,  humors,  and  passions  peculiar  to  themselves, 
and  the  same  disposition  which  produces  the  result  is 
required  to  interpret  it  afterwards."  Did  the  learned 
gentleman  offer  any  such  apology  for  entering  so 
boldly  upon  the  discussion  of  Irish  affairs?  Oh  no; 
there  was  no  apology  necessary ;  he  was  only  going  to 
speak  of  the  "mere  Irish."  There  was  no  word  to 
express  his  own  fear  that  perhaps  he  did  not  under- 
stand the  Irish  character,  or  the  subject  upon  which  he 
was  about  to  treat ;  there  was  no  apology  to  the  Irish 
in  America — the  supposed  fourteen  millions — when  he 
so  boldly  takes  up  their  history,  endeavoring  to  hold 
them  up  as  a  licentious,  immoral,  irreligious,  conten- 
tions, obstinate,  unmanageable  race  ;  not  at  all.  It  was 
not  necessary;  they  were  only  Irish.  If  they  were 
Scotch,  then  the  learned  gentleman  would  have  come 
with  a  thousand  apologies  for  his  own  presumption  in 
venturing  to  approach  such  a  delicate  subject  as  the 
delineation  of  the  Scottish  character,  or  anything  con- 
nected with  it. 

What,  on  the  other  hand,  is  his  treatment  of  the 
Irish  ?  I  have,  in  this  book  before  me,  words  that 
came  from  his  pen,  and  I  protest  as  I  read  them  I  felt 
every  drop  of  my  blood  boil  in  my  veins.  He  com- 
pares us,  in  this  essay,  to  a  pack  of  hounds.     He  vir- 


1 8  Lecture!. 

tually  says :  "  To  deliver  Ireland,  to  give  Ireland  any 
meed  of  freedom,  would  be  the  same  as  when  a  gentle- 
man, addressing  his  hounds,  said,  '  I  give  you  your 
freedom  ;  now  go  out  to  act  for  yourselves.'  **  The 
pack,  it  is  needless  to  say,  after  worrying  all  the  sheep 
in  the  neighborhood,  ended  by  tearing  each  other  to 
pieces. 

Now,  we  Irish  are  naturally  a  proud  people.  The 
antiquity  of  our  race,  the  purity  of  our  blood,  pre- 
served through  the  ancient  form  of  government  by 
clans  or  families,  the  fact  that  serfdom  never  existed 
in  any  form  in  Ireland,  the  consciousness  of  intel- 
lectual gifts  and  power,  the  strange  imaginativeness 
with  which  we  are  endowed,  our  romantic,  though 
unfortunate  history,  so  full  of  disaster  yet  so  full  of 
glory ;  all  these,  and  other  causes,  have  made  us  per- 
haps the  proudest  people  on  the  earth.  Now,  we 
all  know  that  a  proud  people  are  only  made  the  more 
sensitive  by  misfortune,  and  that  they  will  brook 
actual  injury  and  accept  the  fiercest  hatred  rather 
than  submit  to  be  despised  or  treated  with  contempt. 
This  strong  natural  pride  of  the  Irish  has  never  been 
considered  for  a  moment  by  England's  statesmen  in 
dealing  with  the  Irish  people,  nor  by  her  writers  in 
describing  them.  And  yet,  there  it  lies,  deeply  seated 
in  the  Irish  character,  and  the  man  who  ignores  it  will 
never  be  able  to  understand  the  philosophy  of  Irish 
history. 

But  if  the  learned  historian  be  so  far  unfitted  by  his 
nationality  for  dealing  with  Irish  subjects,  still  more 


Tlie  Norman  Invasion.  19 

is  he  rendered  unfit  for  this  work  by  his  religious 
views  and  opinions.  Every  calm  and  unprejudiced 
mind  that  studies  the  history  of  Ireland  must  at  once 
perceive  that  this  people's  Catholic  faith  and  religion 
has  been  for  the  last  three  hundred  years  the  main- 
spring of  their  national  life  and  action.  Ireland's 
Catholicity  has  been  the  source  of  her  bitterest  sor- 
rows and  highest  joys.  The  Catholic  faith  may  have 
sat  lightly  on  other  peoples — in  Ireland  it  entered  into 
the  very  heart  and  soul  of  the  nation.  Elsewhere 
it  may  have  been  an  intellectual  conviction — in  Ire- 
land it  was  an  absorbing  passion.  In  other  lands  we 
may  regard  it  as  a  hallowed  tradition — in  Ireland  it 
was  a  personal  as  well  as  national  divine  power  and 
influence,  before  which  all  other  considerations  were 
to  yield,  to  which  all  interests,  even  life  itself,  were 
to  be  sacrificed.  First  in  the  nation's  heart  and  love, 
the  Catholic  faith  was  our  all  in  all.  That  man  alone 
can  understand  the  feelings,  the  genius,  the  character, 
the  history  of  Ireland  and  of  her  people,  who  knows, 
values,  and  appreciates  this  religion  of  theirs;  who 
understands  the  strong  hold  which  it  can  take  of  a 
man  or  a  people,  and  the  extraordinary  power  with 
which  it  can  shape  character,  influence  policy,  and 
determine  the  color  and  the  purposes  of  life. 

Now,  how  does  Mr.  Froude  view  this  great  and 
mighty  secret  of  Irish  life  and  action  ?  He  dismisses 
the  subject  with  a  few  contemptuous  words.  He  says 
it  is  "  a  matter  of  which  one  knows  as  much  as  another, 
and  all  of  us  know  nothing." 


20  Lecture  L 

It  is  not,  however,  contempt  only  he  feels  for  Ire- 
land's religion ;  it  is  the  deepest  detestation  and 
hatred/  In  his  mind  the  Catholic  Church  and  re- 
ligion is  associated  with  all  that  is  most  monstrous 
and  vile,  and  when  he  comes  to  treat  of  anything 
or  any  people  connected  with  that  religion  he  is 
unreliable — no  longer  to  be  trusted.  He  cannot 
speak  the  truth,  because  he  can  no  longer  see  it.  He 
is  blind,  not  only  in  mental  perception,  but  even  in 
conscience.  He  no  longer  hesitates  to  say  and  do 
things  which  all  men  pronounce  unfair,  dishonorable, 
and  insulting  to  our  common  sense.  The  very  gen- 
tlemen who  rallied  round  him  and  received  him  in 
New  York,  told  him  plainly  enough  how  little  they 
relied  on  his  word  as  an  historian,  whenever  he  had 
a  cause  to  plead  or  a  special  theory  to  work  out.  He 
undertook  to  vindicate  Queen  Elizabeth  and  to  black- 
en Mary,  Queen  of  Scots.  In  doing  this  he  has  been 
convicted  of  what  surely  is  a  crime  in  any  one  pretend- 
ing to  write  history,  namely,  giving  his  own  conclu- 
sions and  words  as  if  they  were  quotations  from  an- 
cient historians  or  authentic  records.  Mr.  Froude, 
writes  Mr.  Meline,  has  never  grasped  the  meaning 
of  inverted  commas. 

His  hero  is  Henry  VIIL,  and  in  order  to  justify 
this  monster,  he  converts  his  known  vices  into  vir- 
tues, his  rapacity  is  only  zeal  for  pure  doctrine,  his 
lust  a  chaste  anxiety  for  the  public  good.  One  or 
two  facts  as  related  by  him  will  settle  the  question  of 
his  veracity  as  an  historian. 


The  Norman  Invasion,  21 

One  fact  will  show  you  how  this  gentleman  treats 
history.  When  King  Henry  VIII.  declared  war 
against  the  Church,  and  when  all  England  was  con- 
vulsed by  his  tyranny — one  day  hanging  a  Catholic  be- 
cause he  would  not  deny  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope, 
the  next  day  hanging  a  Protestant  because  he  denied 
the  Real  Presence — anybody  that  differed  from  Henry 
was  sure  to  be  sent  to  the  scaffold.  It  was  a  sure  and 
expeditious  way  of  silencing  all  argument. 

During  this  time,  when  the  monasteries  were  begin- 
ning to  be  pillaged,  the  Catholic  clergy  of  England, 
especially  those  who  remained  faithful  to  the  Pope, 
were  most  odious  to  the  tyrant ;  and  such  was  the  slav- 
ish acquiescence  of  the  English  people  that  they  began 
to  hate  their  clergy  in  order  to  please  their  king. 
Well,  at  this  time,  a  certain  man  whose  name  was 
Hunn  was  lodged  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower,  and  was 
found  hanged  by  the  neck  in  his  cell.  There  was  a 
coroner^s  inquest  held  upon  him,  and  the  twelve  ruf- 
fians— I  can  call  them  nothing  else — in  order  to  express 
their  hatred  for  the  Church,  and  to  please  the  powers 
that  were,  found  a  verdict  against  the  chancellor  of 
the  Bishop  of  London,  a  most  excellent  priest,  whom 
everybody  knew  to  be  such.  When  the  bishop  heard 
of  this  verdict,  he  applied  to  the  prime  minister  to 
have  the  verdict  quashed.  He  brought  the  matter  be- 
fore the  House  of  Lords,  in  order  that  the  character 
of  his  chancellor  might  be  fully  vindicated.  The 
king's  attorney-general  took  cognizance  of  it  by  a 
solemn  decree,  and  the  verdict  of  the  coroner's  inquest 


22  Lecture  L 

was  set  aside,  and  the  twelve  men  declared  to  be 
twelve  perjurers.  Now,  listen  to  Mr.  Froude's  version 
of  that  story.  He  says  :  The  clergy  of  the  time  were 
reduced  to  such  a  dreadful  state  that  actually  a  coro- 
ner's inquest  returned  a  verdict  of  willful  murder  against 
the  chancellor  of  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  the  bishop 
was  obliged  to  apply  to  Cardinal  Wolsey  to  have  a 
special  jury  to  try  him  ;  because,  if  he  took  any  ordina- 
ry jury  in  London,  they  would  have  found  him  guilty 
— leaving  the  reader  under  the  impression  that  this 
priest,  this  chancellor,  was  a  monster  of  iniquity,  and 
the  priests  of  the  time  were  as  bad  as  he  ;  leaving  the 
impression  that  this  man  was  guilty  of  the  murder,  who 
was  as  innocent  as  Abel,  and  hinting  that,  if  put  on  trial 
before  twelve  of  his  countrymen,  they  would  have 
found  him  guilty  on  the  evidence.  This  is  the  version 
he  puts  upon  it — he  knowing  the  facts  as  well  as  I 
know  them. 

This,  then,  is  the  manner  of  man  with  whom  we  have 
to  deal.  He  comes  to  ask  America  to  indorse  by  her 
verdict  England's  treatment  of  Ireland.  He  acknowl- 
edges that  England  found  us  free,  and  enslaved  us,  and 
he  asks  the  people  of  America  to  say  before  the  world 
that  England  was  right.  He  confesses  that  the  land 
of  Ireland  was  by  right  and  just  title  the  property  and 
possession  of  the  Celt,  and  that  England  robbed  us  of 
that  land  by  war  and  spoliation,  and  he  asks  the  Amer- 
ican people  to  proclaim  that  England  was  right.  He 
tells  us  that  the  people  of  Ireland  were  devotedly 
Catholic,  and  that  England,  by  every  unjust  and  cruel 


The  Norman  Invasion.  23 

means,  persecuted  that  people  for  their  religious  con- 
victions for  over  two  hundred  years,  and  he  calls  upon 
the  great  land  of  civil  and  religious  freedom  to  approve 
of  England*s  persecution/ 

Well,  now,  my  friends,  we  come  to  consider  the  sub- 
ject of  his  first  lecture.  Indeed,  I  must  say  I  never 
practically  experienced  the  difficulty  of  hunting  a  will- 
o'-the-wisp  in  a  marsh,  until  I  came  to  follow  this  learn- 
ed gentleman  in  his  first  lecture.  I  say  nothing  dis- 
respectful of  him  at  all,  but  simply  say,  he  covered  so 
much  ground,  at  such  unequal  distances,  that  it  was 
next  to  impossible  to  follow  him.  He  began  by  re- 
marking how  General  Rufus  King  wrote  a  letter  about 
certain  Irishmen,  and  he  says  that  the  Catholics  of  Ire- 
land sympathized  with  England,  while  the  Protestants 
of  Ireland  were  breast-high  for  America,  in  the  old 
struggle  between  this  country  and  Great  Britain.  All 
these  questions  which  belong  to  our  day,  I  will  leave 
aside  for  the  close  of  these  lectures.  When  I  come  to 
speak  of  the  men  and  things  of  our  own  day,  then  I 
shall  have  great  pleasure  in  taking  up  Mr.  Froude's  as- 
sertions. But,  coming  home  to  the  great  question  of 
Ireland,  what  does  this  gentleman  tell  us?  Seven  hun- 
dred years  ago  Ireland  was  invaded  by  the  Anglo-Nor- 
mans. The  first  thing,  apparently,  that  he  wishes  to 
do,  is  to  justify  this  invasion,  and  establish  the  princi- 
ple that  the  Normans  were  right  in  coming  to  Ireland. 
He  began  by  drawing  a  terrible  picture  of  the  state  of 
Ireland  before  the  invasion :  They  were  cutting  each 
other's  throats  ;  the  whole  land  was  covered  with  blood- 


24  Lecture  L 

shed  ;  there  was  in  Ireland  neither  religion,  morality, 
or  government ;  therefore  the  Pope  found  it  necessary 
to  send  the  Normans  to  Ireland,  as  you  would  send  a 
policeman  into  a  saloon  where  the  people  were  killing 
one  another.  This  is  his  justification — that  in  Ireland, 
seven  hundred  years  ago,  just  before  the  Norman  inva- 
sion, there  was  neither  religion,  morality,  or  govern- 
ment.    Let  us  see  if  he  is  right  ? 

The  first  proof  that  he  gives  that  there  was  no  gov- 
ernment in  Ireland  is  a  most  insidious  statement.  He 
says :  How  could  there  be  any  government  in  a 
country  where  every  family  maintained  itself  accord- 
ing to  its  own  ideas  of  right  or  wrong,  acknowledg- 
ing no  authority.  Now,  if  this  be  true,  in  one  sense 
of  the  word  family,  certainly  Ireland  was  in  a  most 
deplorable  state.  Every  family  governing  itself  ac- 
cording to  its  own  notions,  and  acknowledging  no 
authority !  What  does  he  mean  by  the  words  every 
family?  Speaking  to  Americans  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  it  means  every  household  in  the  land.  We 
speak  of  a  family  as  composed  of  father,  mother,  and 
three  or  four  children  gathered  around  the  domestic 
hearth;  this  is  our  idea  of  the  family.  I  freely  admit  if 
in  this  sense  every  family  in  Ireland  were  governed  by 
their  own  ideas — admitting  of  no  authority  over  them — 
he  has  established  his  case  in  one  thing  against  Ireland. 
But  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  words  every  family  ? 
Irishmen  who  hear  me  to-night  know  it  meant  the 
sept  or  tribe  that  had  the  same  name.  They  owned 
two  or  three  counties  and  a  large  extent  of  territory. 
Men    of   the   same    name    were    called    the    men    of 


The  Norman  Invasion,  25 

the  same  family.  The  MacMurraghs,  of  Leinster ; 
the  O'Tooles,  of  Wicklow  ;  the  O'Byrnes,  of  Kildare  ; 
the  O'Connors,  of  Connaught  ;  the  O'Neills  and  the 
O'Donnells,  of  Ulster.  The  ''  family  "  meant  a  na- 
tion. Two  or  three  counties  were  governed  by  one 
chieftain,  and  represented  by  one  man  of  the  sept.  It 
is  quite  true  that  each  family  governed  itself  in  its 
own  independence,  and  acknowledged  no  superior. 
There  were  five  great  families  in  Ireland :  the  O'Con- 
nors, in  Connaught ;  the  O'Neills,  in  Ulster  ;  the  Mac- 
Loughlins,  in  Meath  ;  the  O'Briens,  in  Munster ;  and 
the  MacMurraghs,  in  Leinster.  And  under  these  five 
great  heads  there  were  minor  septs  and  smaller  fam- 
ilies, each  counting  from  five  or  six  hundred  to  per- 
haps a  thousand  fighting  men,  but  all  acknowledging 
in  the  different  provinces  their  sovereignty  to  these 
five  great  royal  houses.  These  five  houses  again 
elected  their  monarch,  or  supreme  ruler,  called  the 
Ardrigh,  who  dwelt  in  Tara.  Now,  I  ask  you  if  *'  fam- 
ily "  meant  the  whole  sept,  or  tribe,  or  army  in  the 
field  defending  their  rights  and  liberties,  having  a  reg- 
ularly constituted  authority  and  head,  is  it  fair  to  say 
that  the  country  was  in  anarchy  because  every  family 
governed  themselves  according  to  their  own  notions  ? 
Is  it  fair  for  this  gentleman  to  try  to  hoodwink  and 
deceive  the  American  jury  to  which  he  has  made  his 
appeal,  by  describing  the  Irish  ^^  family,"  which  meant 
a  sept  or  tribe,  as  a  family  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
which  means  only  the  head  of  the  house,  with  the  mo- 
ther and  the  children  ? 

2 


26  Lecture  L 

Again  he  says  :  In  this  deplorable  state  the  people 
lived,  like  the  New-Zealanders  of  to-day  live,  in  under- 
ground caves.  And  then  he  boldly  says:  That  I 
myself  opened  up  in  Ireland  one  of  these  underground 
lodging-houses.  Now,  mark.  This  gentleman  lived 
in  Ireland  a  few  years  ago  ;  and  he  discovered  a  rath  in 
Kerry.  In  it  he  found  some  remains  of  mussel-shells 
and  bones.  At  the  time  of  the  discovery  he  had  the 
most  learned  archaeologist  in  Ireland  with  him,  and 
they  put  their  heads  together  about  it.  Mr.  Froude 
has  written  in  this  very  book  that  '^  what  these 
places  were  intended  for,  or  the  uses  they  were  ap- 
plied to,  baffled  all  conjecture ;  no  one  could  tell." 
Then,  if  it  baffled  all  conjecture,  and  he  did  not  know 
what  to  make  of  it — if  it  so  puzzled  him  then  that 
nobody  could  declare  what  they  were  for,  what  right 
has  he  to  come  out  to  America  and  say  they  were  the 
ordinary  dwellings  of  the  Irish  people? 

In  order  to  understand  the  Norman  invasion,  I 
must  ask  you  to  consider,  first,  my  friends,  the  ancient 
Irish  Constitution  which  governed  the  land.  Ireland 
was  governed  by  septs  or  families.  The  land,  from 
time  immemorial,  was  in  the  possession  of  these  fami- 
lies or  tribes.  Each  tribe  elected  its  own  chieftain, 
and  to  him  they  paid  the  most  devoted  obedience 
and  allegiance,  so  that  the  fidelity  of  the  Irish  clans- 
man to  his  chief  was  proverbial.  The  mutual  inde- 
pendence of  the  septs  or  tribes  was  founded  on  what 
is  known  to-day  in  America  as.  the  democratic  princi- 
ple of  State  Rights.     The  chief,  during   his   lifetime, 


The  Norman  Invasion,  27 

convoked  an  assembly  of  the  tribe  again,  and  they 
elected  from  among  the  princes  of  his  family  the  best 
and  the  strongest  man  to  be  his  successor,  and  they 
called  him  the  Tanist.  The  object  of  this  was  that  the 
successor  of  the  king  might  be  known,  and  that,  at  the 
king's  or  the  prince's  death,  there  might  be  no  riot 
or  bloodshed,  or  contention  for  the  right  of  succession 
to  him.  Was  this  not  a  wise  law  ?  The  elective  mon- 
archy has  its  advantages.  The  best  man  comes  to 
the  front,  because  he  is  the  choice  of  his  fellow-men. 
For  when  they  come  to  elect  a  successor  to  their 
prince,  they  choose  the  best  man.  Not  of  necessity  the 
king's  eldest  son,  who  might  be  a  booby  or  a  fool. 

And  so  they  came  together  and  wisely  selected  the 
best,  the  strongest,  the  bravest,  and  the  wisest  man, 
and  he  was  acknowledged  to  have  the  right  to  the  suc- 
cession. He  was  the  Tanist,  according  to  the  ancient 
law  of  Ireland.  Well,  these  families,  as  we  said,  in 
the  various  provinces  of  Ireland,  owed  allegiance  and 
paid  it  to  the  king  of  the  province.  He  was  one  of  the 
five  great  families  called  in  after  ages  the  ^'  ^y^  bloods." 
Each  prince  had  his  own  judge  or  Brehon,  who  ad- 
ministered justice  in  the  court  to  the  people.  These 
Brehons,  or  judges,  wqre  learned  men ;  the  historians 
of  the  time  tell  us  that  they  could  speak  Latin  as 
fluently  as  they  could  speak  Irish  ;  they  had  estab- 
lished a  code  of  law,  and  in  their  colleges  studied  that 
law,  and  when  they  had  graduated  in  their  studies, 
they  came  home  to  their  respective  septs  or  tribes, 
and  were  established  as  judges  or  Brehons  over  the 


28  Lecture  L 

people.  Nay,  more !  Nowhere  in  the  history  of  the 
Irish  do  we  hear  of  an  instance  where  a  man  rebelled 
or  protested  against  the  decision  of  his  Brehon  judge. 
Then  these  five  monarchs  in  the  provinces  elected  an 
Ardrigh,  or  high  king.  With  him  they  sat  in  council 
on  national  matters  within  the  halls  of  imperial  Tara. 
There  Patrick  found  them  in  the  year  432,  minstrels, 
and  bards,  and  Brehons,  princes,  crowned  monarchs, 
and  high  king  ;  there  did  he  find  them  discussing,  like 
lords  and  true  men,  the  affairs  of  the  nation,  when  he 
preached  to  them  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ.  And, 
while  this  Constitution  remained,  the  clansmen  paid 
no  rent  for  their  land.  The  land  of  the  tribe  or  family 
was  held  in  common — it  was  the  common  property  of 
all — and  the  Brehon  or  judge  divided  it,  and  gave  to 
each  man  what  was  necessary  for  him,  with  free  right 
of  pasturage  over  the  whole.  They  had  no  idea  of 
slavery  or  serfdom  amongst  them.  The  Irish  clans- 
man was  of  the  same  blood  with  his  chieftain.  O'Brien 
that  sat  in  the  saddle  at  the  head  of  his  men  was  re- 
lated to  gallowglass  O'Brien  that  was  in  the  ranks. 
No  such  thing  as  looking  down  by  the  chieftains  upon 
their  people ;  no  such  thing  as  a  cowed,  abject  sub- 
mission upon  the  part  of  the  people  to  a  tyranni- 
cal chieftain.  In  the  ranks  they  stood  as  freemen — 
perfectly  equal,  one  with  the  other.  We  are  told 
by  Gerald  Barry,  the  lying  historian — who  some- 
times, though  rarely,  told  the  truth — that  when  the 
English  came  to  Ireland  nothing  astonished  them 
more  than  the   free  and   bold  manner  in  which   the 


The  Norman  Invasion,  29 

humblest  man  spoke  to  his  chieftain,  and  the  conde- 
scending kindness  and  spirit  of  equality  with  which  the 
chieftain  treated  the  humblest  soldier  in  his  tribe. 

This  was  the  ancient  Irish  Constitution,  my  friends. 
And  now,  does  this  look  anything  like  anarchy  ?  Can 
it  be  said  with  truth  of  a  land  where  the  laws  were  so 
well  defined,  where  everything  was  in  its  proper  place 
— that  there  was  anarchy  ?  Mr.  Froude  says,  ''  There 
was  anarchy  there,  because  the  chieftains  were  fight- 
ing amongst  themselves."  So  they  were;  but,  he 
also  adds:  ^' There  was  fighting  everywhere  in  Europe 
after  the  breaking  up  of  the  Roman  Empire."  Well, 
Mr.  Froude  !  fighting  was  going  on  everywhere ;  the 
Saxons  were  fighting  the  Normans  around  them  in 
England  ;  and  what  right  have  you  to  say  that  Ireland, 
beyond  all  other  nations,  was  given  up  to  anarchy, 
because  chieftain  drew  the  sword  against  chieftain  fre- 
quently from  time  to  time  ?^ 

So  much  for  the  question  of  government.  Now,  for 
the  question  of  religion.  The  Catholic  religion  flour- 
ished in  Ireland  for  six  hundred  years  and  more  before 
the  Anglo-Normans  invaded  her  coasts.  For  the  first 
three  hundred  years,  that  religion  was  the  glory  of  the 
world  and  the  pride  of  God's  holy  Church.  Ireland  for 
these  three  hundred  years  was  the  island  mother-home 
of  saints  and  of  scholars.  Men  came  from  every  country 
in  the  then  known  world  to  light  the  lamps  of  knowledge 
and  of  sanctity  at  the  sacred  fire  upon  the  altars  of  Ire- 
land. Then  came  the  Danes,  and  for  three  hundred 
years  our  people  were  harassed  by  incessant  war.    The 


30  Lecture  L 

Danes,  as  Mr.  Froude  remarks,  apparently  with  a  great 
deal  of  approval,  had  no  respect  for  Christ  or  for  relig- 
ion, and  the  first  thing  they  did  was  to  set  fire  to  the 
churches  and  monasteries.  The  nuns  and  holy  monks 
were  scattered,  and  the  people  left  without  instruc- 
tion. In  time  of  war  men  don't  have  much  time  to 
think  of  religion  or  things  of  peace.  And  for  three 
hundred  years  Ireland  was  subject  to  the  invasions 
of  the  Danes.  On  Good  Friday  morning,  in  the 
year  1014,  Brian  Boroihme  defeated  the  Danes  at 
Clontarf,  but  it  was  not  until  the  23d  of  August,  1103, 
in  the  twelfth  century,  that  the  Danes  were  driven 
out  of  the  land  by  the  defeat  of  Magnus,  their  king, 
at  Lough  Strangford,  in  the  north  of  Ireland.  The  con- 
sequence of  these  Danish  wars  w^as  that  the  Catholic 
religion,  though  it  remained  in  all  its  vital  strength,  in 
all  the  purity  of  its  faith  amongst  the  Irish  people,  yet  it 
remained  sadly  shorn  of  that  sanctity  which  adorned  it 
for  the  first  three  hundred  years  of  Irish  Christianity. 
Vices  sprang  up  amongst  the  people,  for  they  were  ac- 
customed to  war,  war,  night  and  day,  for  three  centu- 
ries. Where  is  the  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  that 
would  not  be  utterly  demoralized  by  fifty  years  of  war, 
much  less  by  three  hundred  ?  **  The  Wars  of  the  Roses  " 
in  England  did  not  last  more  than  thirty  years,  and 
they  left  the  English  people  so  demoralized  that  al- 
most without  a  struggle  they  changed  their  religion 
at  the  dictates  of  the  blood-thirsty  and  licentious 
tyrant,  Henry  VIII.*  No  sooner  was  the  Dane  gone 
than  the  Irish  people   summoned   their  bishops  and 


The  Norman  Invasion,  31 

their  priests  to  council,  and  we  find  almost  every  year 
after  the  final  expulsion  of  the  Danes  a  council  held. 
Here  gathered  the  bishops,  priests,  the  leaders  and 
the  chieftains  of  the  land — the  heads  of  the  great 
septs  or  families.  There  they  made  those  laws  by 
which  they  endeavored  to  repair  all  the  evils  of  the  , 
Danish  invasion.  Strict  laws  of  Christian  morality 
were  enforced,  and  again  and  again  we  find  these 
councils  assembled  to  receive  a  Papal  Legate — Car- 
dinal Paparo,  in  the  year  1164,  four  years  before  the 
Norman  invasion.  They  invited  the  Papal  Legate  to 
their  councils,  and  we  find  the  Irish  people  every  year 
before  the  Norman  invasion  obeying  the  laws  of  these 
councils  without  a  murmur.  We  find  councils  of 
Irish  bishops  assembled,  supported  by  the  sword  and 
power  of  the  chieftains,  with  the  Pope*s  Legate,  who 
was  received  into  Ireland  with  open  arms  when- 
ever his  master  sent  him,  and  without  let  or  hindrance. 
When  he  arrived  he  was  surrounded  with  all  the 
devotion  and  chivalrous  affection  which  the  Irish 
have  always  paid  to  the  representatives  of  their  re- 
ligion in  the  country.  And,  my  friends,  it  is 
worth  our  while  to  see  what  was  the  consequence 
of  all  these  councils — what  was  the  result  of  this 
great  religious  revival  which  was  taking  place 
in  Ireland  during  the  few  years  that  elapsed  between 
the  last  Danish  invasion  and  the  invasion  of  the  Nor- 
mans. We  find  three  Irish  saints  reigning  together  in 
the  church.  We  find  St.  Malachi,  one  of  the  greatest 
saints,  Primate  of  Armagh.     We  find  him   succeeded 


32  Lecture  1. 

by  St.  Celsus,  and  again  by  Gregorius,  whose  name  is 
a  name  high  up  in  the  martyrology  of  the  time.  We 
find  in  Dublin  St.  Laurence  O'Toole  of  glorious  mem- 
ory. We  find  Felix  and  Christian,  Bishops  of  Lis- 
more ;  Catholicus,  of  Down  ;  Augustine,  of  Water- 
ford  ;  every  man  of  them  famed  not  only  in  Ireland 
but  throughout  the  whole  Church  of  God  for  the  great- 
ness of  their  learning  and  for  the  brightness  of  their 
sanctity.  We  find  at  the  same  time  Irish  monks,  fa- 
mous for  their  learning  as  men  of  their  day,  and  as  fa- 
mous for  their  sanctity.  In  the  great  Irish  Benedictine 
monastery  of  Ratisbon,  we  find  Dionysius,  Isaac,  Ger- 
vase,  Conrad,  Marianus,  Christian,  and  Gregory. 
Maurus  and  twelve  other  Irish  monks  in  the  monastery 
of  Maniurgghen.  Macurius  with  twelve  Irish  com- 
panions at  Wurzburg ;  all  of  them  men  celebrated  for 
their  holiness  and  learning.  We  find,  moreover,  that 
the  very  year  before  the  Normans  arrived  in  Ireland, 
in  1168,  a  great  council  was  held  at  Athboy,  thirteen 
thousand  Irishmen  representing  the  nation  ;  thirteen 
thousand  warriors  on  horseback  attended  the  council 
of  the  bishops  and  priests,  with  their  chiefs,  to  take 
the  law  they  made  from  them,  and  hear  whatever  the 
Church  commanded  them  to  obey.  What  was  the  re- 
sult of  all  this  ?  Ah !  my  friends,  I  am  not  speaking 
from  any  prejudiced  point  of  view.  It  has  been  said 
**  that  if  Mr.  Froude  gives  the  history  of  Ireland  from 
an  outside  view,  of  course  Father  Burke  would  have 
to  give  it  from  an  inside  view.'*  Now,  I  am  not  giving 
it  from  an  inside  view.     I  am  only  quoting  English 


The  Norman  Invasion,  33 

authorities.  I  find,  in  this  very  interval  between  the 
Danish  and  Saxon  invasions,  Lanfranc,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  writing  to  O'Brien,  King  of  Munster,  con- 
gratulating him  on  the  religious  spirit  of  his  people. 
I  find  St.  Anselm,  one  of  the  greatest  saints  that  ever 
lived,  and  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  under  William 
Rufus,  writing  to  the  King  of  Munster;  **  I  give 
thanks  to  God,"  he  says,  *^  for  the  many  good  things 
we  hear  of  your  Highness,  and  especially  for  the  pro- 
found peace  which  the  subjects  of  your  realm  enjoy. 
All  good  men  who  hear  this  give  thanks  to  God  and 
pray  that  He  may  grant  you  length  of  days."*  The 
man  that  wrote  that,  perhaps,  was  thinking  while  he 
was  writing  of  the  awful  anarchy,  impiety,  and  dark- 
ness of  the  most  dense  and  terrible  kind  which  cover- 
ed his  own  land  of  England  in  the  reign  of  the  Red 
King,  William  Rufus.  And  yet  we  are  told  indeed  by 
Mr.  Froude — a  good  judge  he  seems  to  be  of  religion, 
for  he  says  in  one  of  his  lectures :  ^*  Religion  is  a 
thing  of  which  one  man  knows  as  much  as  another, 
and  none  of  us  know  anything  at  all  *' — that  the  Irish 
were  without  religion,  at  the  very  time  when  the  Irish 
Church  was  forming  itself  into  the  model  of  sanctity 
which  it  was  at  the  time  of  the  Danish  invasion,  when 
Roderic  O'Connor,  King  of  Connaught,  was  acknowl- 
edged by  every  prince  and  chieftain  in  the  land  to  be 
the  high  king  or  Ardrigh.  Now,  as  far  as  regards 
what  he  says  :  **  That  Ireland  was  without  morality," 
I  have  but  little  to  say.     I  will  answer  this  by  one  fact. 

A  King  of  Ireland  stole  another  man's  wife.     His  name, 

2^ 


34  Lecture  L 

accursed  !  was  Dermot  MacMurragh,  King  of  Leinster. 
Every  chieftain  in  Ireland,  every  man  rose  up,  and 
banished  him  from  Irish  soil  as  unworthy  to  live  on  it. 
If  these  were  the  immoral  people  ;  if  these  were  the 
bestial,  incestuous,  depraved  race  which  they  are  de- 
scribed by  leading  Norman  authorities,  may  I  ask  you 
might  not  King  Dermot  turn  round  and  say :  "  Why 
are  you  making  war  upon  me ;  is  it  not  the  order  of 
the  day?  Have  I  not  as  good  a  right  to  be  faithless 
as  anybody  else?  "  Now  comes  Mr.  Froude  and  says, 
**  The  Normans  were  sent  to  Ireland  to  teach  the  Ten 
Commandments  to  the  Irish."  In  the  language  of 
Shakespeare  I  would  say — ''  Oh !  Jew,  I  thank  thee 
for  that  word."  In  these  Ten  Commandments  the  three 
most  important  are,  in  their  relation  to  human  society, 
*'Thou  shalt  not  steal ;  thou  shalt  not  kill ;  thou  shalt 
not  covet  thy  neighbor's  wife."  The  Normans,  even 
in  Mr.  Froude's  view,  had  no  right  or  title  under 
Heaven  to  one  square  inch  of  the  soil  of  Ireland. 
They  came  to  take  what  was  not  their  own,  what  they 
had  no  right,  no  title  to.  And  they  came  as  robbers 
and  thieves  to  teach  the  Ten  Commandments  to  the 
Irish  people,  amongst  them  the  commandment 
**  Thou  shalt  not  steal."  Henry  landed  in  Ireland  in 
1 171.  He  was  after  murdering  the  holy  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  St.  Thomas  a  Becket.  They  scattered 
his  brains  before  the  foot  of  the  altar,  before  the  Bles- 
sed Sacrament,  at  the  vesper  hour.  The  blood  of  the 
saint  and  martyr  was  upon  his  hands  when  he  came  to 
Ireland    to    teach    the   Irish,  ''  Thou   shalt  not   kill." 


The  Norman  Invasion,  35 

What  was  the  occasion  of  their  coming  ?  When  the 
adulterer  was  driven  from  the  sacred  soil  of  Erin,  as 
one  unworthy  to  profane  it  by  his  tread,  he  went  over 
to  Henry  and  procured  from  him  a  letter  permitting 
any  of  his  subjects  that  chose  to  embark  for  Ireland 
to  do  so,  and  there  to  reinstate  the  adulterous  tyrant, 
King  Dermot,  in  his  kingdom.  They  came  then  as 
protectors  and  helpers  of  adultery  to  teach  the  Irish 
people,  "■  Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  wife." 

Mr.  Froude  tells  us  they  were  right — that  they  were 
the  apostles  of  purity,  honesty,  and  clemency,  and  Mr. 
Froude  ^^  is  an  honorable  man."  Ah !  but  he  says, 
*'  remember,  my  good  Dominican  friend,  that  if  they 
came  to  Ireland,  they  came  because  the  Pope  sent 
them."  Henry,  in  the  year  1175,  produced  a  letter 
which  he  said  he  received  from  Pope  Adrian  IV., 
which  commissioned  him  to  go  to  Ireland,  and  permit- 
ted him  there,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  letter,  to 
do  whatever  he  thought  right  and  fit  to  promote  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  people.  The  date 
that  was  on  the  letter  was  1155,  consequently  it  was 
twenty  years  old.  During  the  twenty  years  nobody 
ever  heard  of  that  letter  except  Henry,  who  had  it  in 
his  pocket,  and  an  old  man  called  John  of  Salisbury, 
that  wrote  how  he  went  to  Rome  and  procured  the 
letter  in  a  huggermugger  way  from  the  Pope.  Now, 
I  solemnly  and  fearlessly  assert  that  the  letter  was  a 
forgery,  and  that  Pope  Adrian  never  issued  any  such 
document.  This  letter  or  brief  comes  down  to  us  on 
the  authority   of  John  of  Salisbury,  who  tells  us  in  a 


$6  Lecture  I. 

work  of  his  called  '*  Metalogicus,"  that  being  in  Rome 
in  1 155,  he  obtained  from  Pope  Adrian  the  investiture 
of  Ireland  for  Henry  II.  This  statement  is  made 
in  the  last  chapter  of  the  book.  It  has  no  bear- 
ing on  the  subject  matter,  or  context  of  the  work,  and 
at  first  sight  looks  like  a  kind  of  after-thought,  let  in  ♦• 
apropos  of  nothing.  The  ^*  Metalogicus  "  must  have 
been  written  about  the  year  1159,  for  the  author  tells 
us  that  he  had  just  received  the  news  of  Adrian's 
death,  which  took  place  in  that  year.  Moreover,  he 
states  that  Theobald,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  was 
still  living,  and  Theobald  died  in  1161.  If,  then,  the 
assertion  in  question  was  in  the  Metalogicus  of  John 
of  Salisbury,  it  must  have  seen  the  light  in  11 59  or 
1 160.  But  all  historians  acknowledge  without  a  shad- 
ow of  doubt  that  Adrian's  letter  was  never  published 
nor  heard  of  until  1174  or  1175,  therefore,  I  conclude 
that  it  is  a  forged  document,  let  into  a  subsequent 
edition  of  the  Metalogicus  when  John  of  Salisbury 
was  dead  and  gone.  • 

Moreover,  the  brief  of  Adrian,  as  we  find  in  the 
ancient  manuscripts,  was  dated  from  Rome,  but  Pope 
Adrian  was  not  in  Rome  at  all  during  that  time.  Im- 
mediately after  his  consecration  he  had  to  fly  from 
Rome,  on  account  of  popular  commotions  excited  and 
led  by  the  celebrated  Arnold  of  Brescia ;  and  John  of 
Salisbury  himself  attests  that  he  found  the  Pope  at 
Benevento,  where  he  stayed  with  him  for  three  months. 
How  comes  it,  therefore,  that  Adrian's  brief  should 
date  from  Rome  when  the  Pope  was  not  there  at  all  ? 


The  Norman  Invasion,  37  ^ 

How  comes  it  that  John  of  Salisbury,  in  his  book 
called  ^^  Polycratius,"  in  which  he  deals  ex  professo 
with  his  visit  to  Adrian,  does  not  mention  one  word 
about  the  celebrated  brief? 

But,  replies  Mr.  Froude,  we  have  another  document 
which  places  the  authenticity  of  Adrian's  letter  beyond 
all  question.  We  have  the  bull  of  Pope  Alexan- 
der III.,  acknowledging  and  confirming  Adrian's 
grant  ? 

This  opens  the  question — is  the  bull  of  Alexander 
genuine.  We  have  it  on  the  authority  of  Gerald  Bar- 
ry, commonly  called  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  one  of  the 
greatest  liars  that  ever  put  pen  to  paper,  as  all  stu- 
dents of  history  well  know.  Pope  Alexander  wrote 
three  letters  in  1172,  which  are  certainly  authentic. 
One  was  addressed  to  the  Irish  bishops,  another  to 
the  Irish  chieftains,  and  a  third  to  King  Henry  him- 
self. These  three  letters  treat  entirely  and  exclusive- 
ly, of  the  invasion  of  Ireland,  and  nowhere  do  we 
find  one  word  about  Adrian's  concession  of  the  island. 
The  only  title  they  recognize  in  Henr}^  is,  ^^  that  mon- 
arch's power  and  the  submission  of  the  Irish  chief- 
tains." At  the  time  these  letters  were  written  no  man 
in  Ireland  had  ever  heard  of  Adrian's  grant,  for,  if  it 
existed,  Henry  up  to  this  time  had  kept  it  carefully 
concealed.  These  three  genuine  letters  were  dated 
from  Tusculum  and  not  from  Rome.  The  bull  on 
which  Mr.  Froude  relies  is  a  fourth  document  of  the 
same  year,  1172,  and  it  is  didX^A  from  Rome,  Now, 
Pope  Alexander  was  not  in  Rome  in   1172,  nor  for  six 


38  Lecture  L 

years    later,    and    any    papal    document    dated    from 
Rome  in  that  year  is  a  forgery. 

Giraldus  inserted  the  bull  of  Pope  Alexander  in  his 
book  on  the  conquest  of  Ireland,  "•  Expugnatio  Hiber- 
nica ;  "  but  did  he  believe  in  it  himself?  We  have 
another  work  of  his  written  some  years  after,  and  en- 
titled ^'  De  Principis  Instructione,'*  in  which,  speaking 
of  Alexander's  bull,  he  says,  "'  Some  assert  or  imagine 
that  this  bull  was  obtained  from  the  Pope ;  but  others 
deny  that  it  was  ever  obtained  from  the  Pontiff." 
Amongst  the  "'  others  "  were  the  whole  Irish  priest- 
hood and  people,  who  very  properly  have  always  looked 
upon  these  two  supposed  papal  documents  as  auda- 
cious Norman  forgeries.  ^^  It  will  be  well  also,"  ob- 
serves the  learned  Bishop  of  Ossory,  **  whilst  forming 
our  judgment  regarding  this  supposed  bull  of  Adrian, 
to  hold  in  mind  the  disturbed  state  of  society,  espe- 
cially in  Italy,  at  the  time  to  which  it  refers.  At  the 
present  day  it  would  be  no  easy  matter  indeed  for 
such  a  forgery  to  survive  more  than  a  few  weeks.  But 
at  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century  it  was  far  otherwise. 
Owing  to  the  constant  revolutions  and  disturbances 
that  then  prevailed,  the  Pontiff  was  oftentimes  obliged 
to  fly  from  city  to  city ;  frequently  his  papers  were 
seized  and  burned,  and  he  himself  detained  as  a  hos- 
tage or  prisoner  by  his  enemies.  Hence  it  is  that 
several  forged  bulls,  examples  of  which  are  given  in 
*  Cambrensis  Eversus,'  date  from  these  times.  More 
than  one  of  the  grants  made  to  the  Norman  families 
are  now  believed  to  rest  on  such  forgeries  ;  and  that 


The  Norman  Invasion.  39 

the  Anglo-Norman  adventurers  in  Ireland  were  not 
strangers  to  such  deeds  of  darkness  appears  from  the 
fact  that  a  matrix  forging  the  Papal  Seal  of  such 
bulls,  now  preserved  in  the  R.  I.  Academy,  was 
found  a  few  years  ago  in  the  ruins  of  one  of  the  ear- 
liest Anglo-Norman  monasteries,  founded  by  De 
Courcy." 

*^The  circumstances  of  the  publication  of  the  bull 
by  Henry  were  surely  not  calculated  to  disarm  suspi- 
cion. Our  opponents  do  not  even  pretend  that  it  was 
made  known  in  Ireland  till  the  year  1775,  and  hence, 
though  publicly  granted  with  solemn  investiture,  as 
John  of  Salisbury's  testimony  would  imply,  and  though 
its  record  was  deposited  in  the  public  archives  of  the 
kingdom,  this  bull,  so  vital  to  the  interests  of  the  Irish 
Church,  should  have  remained  dormant  for  twenty 
years,  unnoticed  m  Rome,  unnoticed  by  Henry's  court- 
iers, still  more,  unnoticed  by  the  Irish  bishops,  and,  I 
will  add,  unnoticed  by  the  Continental  sovereigns,  so 
jealous  of  the  power  and  preponderance  of  the  English 
monarch.  For  such  suppositions  there  is  indeed  no 
parallel  in  the  whole  history  of  investitures." 

But  Mr.  Froude  will  do*ubtless  say  you  may  see  the 
copy  of  Adrian's  bull  in  Baronius's  Annuals,  copied 
**  from  a  Vatican  manuscript."  I  answer,  the  manu- 
script in  question  is  merely  the  history  of  Matthew  of 
Paris,  an  English  monk  of  St.  Albans.  But  nowhere 
in  the  private  archives,  or  among  the  private  papers 
of  the  Vatican,  or  in  the  authoritative  ''  Regesta,"  or  in 
the  various  indices  of  the  pontifical  letters,  can  a  single 


40  Lecture  L 

trace  be  found  of  the  supposed  bulls  of  Adrian  IV. 
and  Alexander  III. 

"  There  is  only  one  other  reflection,"  continues  the 
learned  Bishop  of  Ossory,  ^'  with  which  I  wish  to  detain 
the  reader.  The  condition  of  our  country,  and  the  re- 
lations between  Ireland  and  the  English  king,  which  ^ 
are  set  forth  in  the  supposed  bull,  are  precisely  those 
of  the  year  1172;  but  it  would  have  required  more 
than  a  prophetic  vision  to  have  anticipated  them  in 
1 155.  In  1 155  Ireland  was  not  in  a  state  of  turmoil  or 
verging  towards  barbarism  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was 
rapidly  progressing,  and  renewing  its  claim  to  religious 
and  moral  pre-eminence.  I  will  add,  that  Pope  Adrian, 
who  had  studied  under  Irish  masters,  knew  well  this 
flourishing  condition  of  our  country.  In  1 172,  how- 
ever, a  sad  change  had  come  over  our  island.  Four 
years  of  continual  warfare,  and  the  ravages  of  the 
Anglo-Norman  fiUibusters,  since  their  first  landing  in 
1 168,  had  well  nigh  reduced  Ireland  to  a  state  of  bar- 
barism, and  the  authentic  letters  of  Alexander  III.,  in 
1 1 72,  faithfully  describe  its  most  deplorable  condition. 
Moreover,  an  expedition  of  Henry  to  Ireland,  which 
would  not  be  an  invasion,  and  yet  would  merit  the 
homage  of  the  Irish  princes,  was  simply  an  impossibil- 
ity in  1155.  But  owing  to  the  special  circumstances 
of  the  kingdom,  such  in  reality  was  the  expedition  of 
Henry  in  U72.  He  set  out  for  Ireland,  not  avowed- 
ly to  invade  and  conquer  it,  but  to  curb  the  insolence 
and  to  punish  the  deeds  of  pillage  of  his  own  Norman 
freebooters.       Hence,   during   his  stay  in   Ireland   he 


The  NQTinan  Invasion,  41 

fought  no  battle  and  made  no  conquest ;  his  first 
measures  of  severity  were  directed  against  some  of 
the  most  lawless  of  the  early  Norman  adven- 
turers, and  this,  more  than  anything  else,  reconciled 
the  native  princes  to  his  military  display.  In  return 
he  received  from  a  majority  of  the  Irish  chieftains  the 
empty  title  of  Ard-righ^  or  **  Head  Sovereign,"  which 
did  not  suppose  any  conquest  on  his  part,  and  did  not 
involve  any  surrender  of  their  own  hereditary  rights. 
Such  a  state  of  things  could  not  have  been  imagined 
in  1 1 55;  and  yet  it  is  one  which  is  implied  in  the 
spurious  bull  of  the  much  maligned  Pontiff,  Adrian 
IV." 

It  is  said  Adrian  gave  the  rescript,  and  did  not 
know  the  man  he  gave  it  to.  But  Alexander  knew 
him  well!  Henry,  in  11 59  and  1166,  supported  the 
anti-Popes  against  Alexander,  and,  according  to  Mat- 
thew of  Westminster,  King  Henry  II.  obliged  every 
one  in  England,  from  the  boy  of  twelve  years  of  age 
to  the  old  man,  to  renounce  their  allegiance  to  Alex- 
ander III.,  and  go  over  to  the  anti-Popes.  Now  is  it 
likely  that  Alexander  would  give  him  a  rescript,  tell- 
ing him  to  go  to  Ireland  and  settle  the  ecclesiastical 
matters  there?  Alexander  himself  wrote  to  Henry, 
and  said  to  him,  ^^  Instead  of  remedying  the  disorders 
caused  by  your  predecessors,  you  have  added  prevari- 
cation to  prevarication  ;  you  have  oppressed  the 
Church,  and  endeavored  to  destroy  the  canons  of 
apostolical  men." 

Such  is  the  man  that  Alexander  sent  to  Ireland  to 


42  Lecture  I. 

make  the  Irish  good  people.  According  to  Mr.  Froude, 
the  Irish  never  loved  the  Pope  until  the  Normans 
taught  them.'"  What  is  the  fact?  Until  the  accursed 
Norman  came  to  Ireland,  the  Papal  Legate  always  came 
to  the  land  at  his  pleasure.  No  king  ever  obstructed 
him  ;  no  Irish  hand  was  ever  raised  against  a  bishop 
or  priest  of  the  land,  or  Papal  Legate.  After,  the 
Legate  Cardinal  Vivian  came  to  England ;  Henry 
took  him  by  the  throat  and  made  him  swear  that 
when  he  went  to  Ireland  he  would  'do  nothing  against 
the  interest  of  the  king.  It  was  an  unheard  of  thing 
that  archbishops  and  cardinals  should  be  persecuted, 
until  the  Normans  taught  the  world  how  to  do  it,  with 
their  accursed  feudal  system,  concentrating  all  power 
in  the  king. 

Ah,  bitterly  did  Laurence  O'Toole  feel  it — the  great, 
heroic  saint  of  Ireland — when  he  went  to  England  on 
his  last  voyage !  The  moment  he  arrived  in  England, 
the  king's  officers  made  him  prisoner.  The  king  had  left 
orders  that  he  was  never  to  set  foot  in  Ireland  again. 

It  was  this  man  that  was  sent  over  as  an  apostle  of 
morality  to  Ireland  ;  he  was  the  man  accused  of  vio- 
lating the  betrothed  wife  of  his  own  son,  Richard  I. ; 
a  man  whose  crimes  will  not  bear  repetition  ;  a  man 
who  was  believed  by  Europe  to  be  possessed  of  the 
devil  ;  a  man  of  whom  it  is  written  **  that  when  he 
got  into  a  fit  of  anger,  he  tore  off  his  clothes  and  sat 
naked,  chewing  straw  like  a  beast !  **  Furthermore, 
is  it  likely  that  a  Pope  who  knew  him  so  well,  who 
suffered  so  much  from  him,  would  have  sent  him  to  Ire- 


The  Norman  Invasion,  43 

land — the  murderer  of  bishops,  the  robber  of  churches, 
the  destroyer  of  ecclesiastical  liberty,  and  of  every 
form  of  liberty  that  came  before  him  ?  No  !  I  never 
will  believe  that  the  Pope  of  Rome  was  so  very  short- 
sighted, so  unjust,  as,  by  a  stroke  of  his  pen,  to  abolish 
and  destroy  the  liberties  of  the  most  faithful  people 
who  ever  bowed  down  in  allegiance  to  him/^ 

But  let  us  suppose  that  Pope  Adrian  gave  the  bull. 
I  hold  still  it  was  of  no  account,  because  it  was  ob- 
tained under  false  pretences ;  for  he  told  the  Pope 
that  the  Irish  people  were  in  a  state  of  miserable  igno- 
rance, which  did  not  exist.  Thus,  he  told  a  lie,  and, 
according  to  the  Roman  law,  a  papal  rescript  ob- 
tained on  a  lie  is  null  and  void.  Again,  when 
Henry  told  the  Pope  when  he  gave  him  that  rescript 
and  power  to  go  to  Ireland,  that  he  would  fix  every- 
thing right,  and  do  everything  for  the  glory  of  God 
and  the  good  of  the  people,  he  had  no  intention  of 
doing  it  and  never  did  it.  Consequently,  the  rescript 
was  null  and  void. 

But  suppose  the  rescript  was  valid.  Well,  my 
friends,  what  power  did  it  give  Henry  ?  Did  it  give 
him  the  land  of  Ireland  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  Any  one 
who  attentively  weighs  the  words  of  the  document 
will  see  at  once  that  it  prescinds  from  all  title  of  con- 
quest, whilst  at  the  same  time  it  makes  no  gift  or 
transfer  of  dominion  to  Henry  II.  As  far  as  this 
letter  of  Adrian  is  concerned,  the  visit  of  Henry 
to  our  island  might  be  the  enterprise  of  a  friendly 
monarch,  who,  at  the  invitation  of  a  distracted  state, 


44  Lecture  L 

would  seek  by  his  presence  to  restore  peace,  and  to 
uphold  the  observance  of  the  laws.  Thus,  those  fool- 
ish theories  must  at  once  be  set  aside,  which  rest  on 
the  groundless  supposition  that  Pope  Adrian  author- 
ized the  invasion  and  plunder  of  our  people  by  the 
Anglo-Norman  adventurers.  At  most,  all  he  said  he « 
wished  of  the  Irish  chieftains  was  to  acknowledge 
Henry's  high  sovereignty  over  the  land.  Now,  you 
must  know  that  in  these  early  middle  ages  there  were 
two  kinds  of  sovereignty.  There  was  a  sovereignty 
that  had  the  people  and  the  land.  They  were  the 
king's  ;  he  governed  these  as  the  kings  and  emperors  do 
in  Europe  to-day.  Besides  this  real  sovereignty  there 
was  what  was  called  a  ^^  haute  stczerainetP'  or  high  do- 
minion, which  required  the  homage  only  of  the  chief- 
tains of  the  land,  but  which  left  them  in  perfect  liberty, 
and  in  perfect  independence.  Henry  demanded  this 
nominal  tribute  of  their  homage,  and  nothing  more. 
This  was  all  evidently  that  the  Pope  of  Rome  in- 
tended in  Ireland,  if  he  permitted  so  much  ;  and  the 
proof  of  it  lies  here,  that  when  Henry  II.  came  to  Ire- 
land he  did  not  claim  of  the  Irish  kings  that  they 
should  give  up  their  sovereignty.  He  left  Roderic 
O'Connor  King  of  Connaught,  acknowledging  him  as 
a  fellow-king  ;  he  acknowledged  his  royalty,  and  con- 
firmed him  when  he  demanded  of  him  the  allegiance 
and  the  homage  of  a  feudal  prince — a  feudal  suzerain 
— leaving  him  in  perfect  independence. 

Again,  let  us  suppose  that  Henry  intended  to  conquer 
Ireland,  and  bring  it  into  slavery.     Did  he    succeed  ? 


The  Norman  Invasion,  45 

Was  there  a  conquest  at  all  ?  Nothing  like  it.  He 
came  to  Ireland  ;  the  kings  and  princes  of  the  Irish 
people  said  to  him  :  *'  Well,  we  are  willing  to  acknowl- 
edge your  high  sovereignty.  You  are  the  lord  of  Ire- 
land, but  we  are  the  owners  of  the  land.  It  is  simply 
acknowledging  your  title  as  lord  of  Ireland,  and  noth- 
ing more.''  If  he  intended  anything  more,  he  never 
carried  out  his  intention ;  he  was  able  to  conquer  that 
portion  which  was  held  before  by  the  Danes,  but  noth- 
ing more.  It  is  a  fact  that  when  the  Irish  had  driven 
the  Danes  out  of  Ireland  at  Clontarf,  that,  as  they  al- 
ways were  straightforward  and  generous  in  the  hour  of 
their  triumph,  they  permitted  the  Danes  to  remain  in 
Dublin,  Wexford,  Wicklow,  and  Waterford.  The  con- 
sequence of  this  was  that  a  good  portion  of  the  eastern 
seaboard  of  Ireland  was  in  the  possession  of  the  Danes. 
The  Normans  came  over,  and  were  regarded  by  the 
Irish  as  cousins  to  the  Danes,  and  only  took  the  Dan- 
ish territory — nothing  more — and  the  Irish  seemed  will- 
ing to  share  with  them.  Mr.  Froude's  second  justifica- 
tion of  these  most  iniquitous  acts  is,  that  Ireland  was  a 
prey  to  the  Danes.  He  says  the  Danes  came  to  the 
land  and  made  the  people  ferocious,  and  leaves  his 
hearers  to  infer  that  the  Danish  wars  in  Ireland  were 
only  a  succession  of  individual  and  ferocious  contests 
between  tribe  and  tribe,  and  between  man  and  man, 
whereas  they  were  a  magnificent  trial  of  strength  be- 
tween two  of  the  greatest  and  bravest  nations  that 
ever  met  foot  to  foot  or  hand  to  hand  on  a  battle- 
field.    The  Danes  were  unconquerable  in  every  other 


46  Lecture  L 

land  which  they  invaded  ;  the  Celts,  for  three  hundred 
years,  fought  with  them  and  disputed  every  inch  of  the 
land  with  them,  filled  every  valley  in  the  land  with 
their  dead  bodies,  and  in  the  end  drove  them  back  into 
the  North  Sea,  and  freed  their  native  soil  from  their 
domination.  This  magnificent  contest  is  represented 
by  this  historian  as  a  mere  ferocious  onslaught,  daily 
renewed  betwen  man  and  man  in  Ireland.  The  Nor- 
mans arrived  and  we  have  seen  how  they  were  receiv- 
ed ;  the  Butlers  and  Fitzgeralds  went  down  into  Kil- 
dare  ;  the  De  Berminghams  and  Burkes  went  down  into 
Connaught.  The  people  offered  them  very  little  op- 
position, gave  them  a  portion  of  their  lands,  and  wel- 
comed them  amongst  them ;  and  they  began  to  love 
them  as  if  they  were  their  own  flesh  and  blood.  That 
love  was  soon  returned.  But,  my  friends,  these  Nor- 
mans, so  haughty  in  England,  despised  the  Saxons  so 
bitterly  that  their  name  for  the  Saxon  was  "  villein  " 
or  churl.  They  would  not  allow  a  Saxon  to  sit  at  the 
same  table  with  them,  and  never  thought  of  inter- 
marrying with  the  Saxons  for  many  long  years.  The 
proud  Norman,  ferocious  in  his  passions,  brave  as  a 
lion,  formed  by  his  Crusades  and  Saracenic  wars,  the 
bravest  warrior  of  his  times — this  steel-clad  knight  dis- 
dained the  Saxon.  Even  one  of  their  followers,  Gerald 
Barry,  speaking  of  the  Saxons,  says  :  '^  I  am  a  Welshman  ; 
who  would  think  of  comparing  the  Welsh  with  the 
Saxon  boors,  the  basest  race  on  the  face  of  the  earth  ?  ** 
(I  am  only  giving  his  words — not  sharing  in  his  senti- 
ments.)    They  fought  one  battle,  and  when  the  Nor- 


The  Norman  Invasion.  47 

mans  conquered  them  they  consented  to  be  slaves 
forevermore.  Who  would  compare  them  with  the 
Welsh — the  Celtic  race  ?  says  this  man  :  with  the 
brave,  intellectual,  and  magnanimous  race  of  the  Celts. 
Now,  my  friends,  when  these  Normans  went  down 
into  Ireland  amongst  the  Irish  people,  went  out  from 
the  Danish  portion  of  the  Pale,  what  is  the  first  thing 
that  we  see?  They  threw  off  their  Norman  traits, 
forgot  their  Norman-French  language  and  took  the 
Irish,  took  Irish  wives — and  were  glad  to  get  them — 
and  adopted  Irish  customs,  until  in  two  hundred  years 
after  the  Norman  invasion,  we  find  these  proud  de- 
scendants of  William  Fitzaldem,  Earl  of  Clanricarde, 
changing  their  names,  for  my  name  of  Burke  was 
changed  to  the  upper  and  lower  McWilliam,  or 
sons  of  William,  in  the  days  of  Lionel,  Duke  of 
Clarence,  and  so  they  called  themselves  by  the  name 
and  adopted  the  language  and  customs  of  the  country. 
Of  the  four  hundred  sad  years  that  followed  the 
Norman  invasion  down  to  the  accession  of  Henry 
VIII. ,  Mr.  Froude  has  nothing  to  say,  except  that 
Ireland  was  in  a  constant  state  of  anarchy  and  con- 
fusion ;  and  it  is  too  true.  It  is  perfectly  true.  Chief- 
tain against  chieftain.  It  was  comparative  peace  be- 
fore the  invasion,  but  when  the  Normans  came  in  they 
divided  them  by  craft  and  cunning.  The  ancient  his- 
torian, Strabo,  says:  ''The  Gauls  always  march  open- 
ly to  their  end,  and  they  are  therefore  easily  circum- 
;  vented."  So  when  the  Normans  came,  and  the  Sax- 
'  ens,  they  sowed  dissensions  among  the  people.     They 


48  \  Lecture  I. 

stirred  them  up  against  each  other,  and  the  bold,  hot 
blood  of  the  Celt  was  always  ready  to  engage  in  con- 
test and  in  war.  What  was  the  secret  of  that  inces- 
sant and  desolating  war  ?  There  is  no  history  more 
painful  to  read  than  the  history  of  the  Irish  people, 
from  the  day  that  the  Norman  landed  on  their  coast 
until  the  day  when  the  great  issue  of  Protest-* 
antism  was  put  before  the  nation,  and  when  Irish- 
men rallied  in  that  grand  day  as  one  man.  My 
friends,  the  true  secret  of  the  early  and  constant 
efforts  of  the  English  to  force  upon  Ireland  the 
establishment  of  the  feudal  system,  was  to  rob  the 
Irish  of  every  inch  of  their  land  and  to  exterminate 
the  Celtic  race.^^  I  lay  this  down  as  the  one  secret,  the 
one  thread  by  which  you  may  unravel  the  tangled 
skein  of  our  history  for  the  four  hundred  years  that 
followed  the  Norman  invasion.  The  Normans  and 
the  Saxons  came  with  the  express  purpose  and  design 
of  taking  every  foot  of  land  in  Ireland,  and  extermina- 
ting the  Celtic  race.  It  is  an  awful  thing  to  think  of, 
but  we  have  evidence  for  it.  First  of  all,  Henry  II., 
whilst  he  made  his  treaties  with  the  Irish  kings,  se- 
cretly divided  the  whole  of  Ireland  into  ten  portions, 
and  allotted  each  of  these  portions  to  one  of  his  Nor- 
man knights.  In  a  word,  he  robbed  the  Irish  people, 
and  the  Irish  chieftains,  of  every  foot  of  land  in  the 
Irish  territory.  It  is  true,  the  invaders  were  not  able 
to  take  possession.  It  is  as  if  a  master  robber  were 
to  divide  the  booty  before  it  is  taken.  It  is  far  easier 
to  assign  property  not  yet  stolen,  than  to  put  the 


The  Norman  Invasion,  49 

thieves  into  possession  of  it.  There  were  Irish  hands 
and  Irish  battle-blades  in  the  way  for  many  a  long  year, 
nor  has  it  been  accomplished  to  this  day.  In  order  to 
root  out  the  Celtic  race,  and  to  destroy  us,  mark  the 
measures  of  legislation  which  followed.  First  of  all, 
my  friends,  whenever  an  Englishman  was  put  in  posses- 
sion of  an  acre  of  land,  he  got  the  right  to  trespass 
upon  his  Irish  neighbors,  and  to  take  their  land,  as  far 
as  he  could,  and  they  had  no  action  in  a  court  of  law 
to  recover  their  land.  If  an  Irishman  brought  an  ac- 
tion at  law  against  an  Englishman,  for  taking  half  of 
his  field,  or  for  trespassing  upon  his  land,  according  to 
the  law  from  the  very  beginning,  that  Irishman  was  sent 
out  of  court — there  was  no  action — the  Englishman 
was  perfectly  justified.  Worse  than  this.  They  made 
laws  declaring  that  the  killing  of  an  Irishman  was  no 
felony.  Sir  John  Davis  tells  us  how,  upon  a  certain 
occasion,  at  the  assizes  at  Waterford,  in  the  twenty- 
ninth  year  of  Edward  I.,  a  certain  Thomas  Butler 
brought  an  action  against  Robert  de  Almain,  to  re- 
cover certain  goods  that  Robert  had  stolen  from  him. 
The  cause  was  brought  into  court.  Robert  acknowl- 
edged that  he  had  stolen  the  goods ;  that  he  was  a 
thief.  The  defense  he  put  in  was  that  Edward,  the 
man  he  had  plundered,  was  an  Irishman.  Now,  my 
friends,  just  think  of  it !  The  issue  that  was  put  be- 
fore the  jury  was  not  whether  the  robbery  was  really 
committed,  but  whether  Edward,  the  plaintiff,  was  an 
Irishman,  or  an  Englishman.  Robert,  the  thief,  was 
obliged  to  give  back  the  goods — for  the  jury  found 

3 


so  Lecture  L 

that  Edward  was  an  Englishman.  But  if  the  jury- 
found  that  Edward  was  an  Irishman,  he  might  go  with- 
out the  goods — there  was  no  action  against  the  thief,  if 
the  man  aggrieved  happened  not  to  be  of  the  thief's 
nation.  We  find  upon  the  same  authority — Sir  John 
Davis — a  description  of  a  certain  jail  delivery  at  Wa- 
terford,  where  a  man  named  Robert  Welsh  killed  an 
Irishman,  John,  the  son  of  Ivor  McGilmore.  He  was 
arraigned  and  tried  for  manslaughter,  and  he,  without 
the  slightest  difficulty,  acknowledged  it.  **  Yes,  I  did 
kill  him,"  said  he  ;  '^you  cannot  try  me  for  it,  however, 
as  he  was  only  an  Irishman  !  "  Instantly  he  was  let  out 
of  the  dock,  on  condition — as  the  Irishman  was  in  the 
service  at  the  time  of  an  English  master — he  should 
pay  whatever  he  compelled  him  to  pay  for  the  loss 
of  his  services,  and  the  murderer  might  go  scot-free." 
Not  only,  says  Sir  John  Davis,  were  the  Irish 
considered  aliens,  but  they  were  considered  enemies, 
insomuch  that  though  an  Englishman  might  settle 
upon  an  Irishman's  land,  there  was  no  redress;  but 
if  an  Irishman  wished  to  buy  an  acre  of  land  from 
an  Englishman  he  could  not  do  it.  So  they  kept  the 
land  they  had  and  they  were  always  adding  to  it  by 
plunder :  they  could  steal  without  even  buying  more. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Irish  were  forbid  even  to  pur- 
chase land.  Though  the  English  might  take  from  the 
Irish,  the  Irish  could  not,  even  by  way  of  gift  or  pur- 
chase, take  any  from  the  English.  In  every  charter 
of  English  liberty,  as  it  was  called,  granted  to  an  Irish- 
man, besides  the  right  to  bring  actions  in  the  king's 


The  Norman  Invasion, 


51 


court,  there  was  given  an  express  power  to  him  to 
purchase  lands  for  himself  and  heirs.  Without  this  he 
could  not  hold  any  so  acquired.  If  any  man  made 
a  will,  and  left  an  acre  of  land  to  an  Irishman,  the 
moment  it  was  proved  that  he  was  an  Irishman,  the 
land  was  forfeited  to  the  Crown  of  England — even 
if  it  was  only  left  in  trust  to  him,  as  we  have  two  very 
striking  examples.  We  read  that  a  certain  James 
Butler  left  some  lands  in  Meath  m  trust  for  charitable 
purposes,  and  he  left  them  to  his  two  chaplains.  It 
was  proved  that  the  two  priests  were  Irishmen,  and 
that  it  was  left  to  them  in  trust  for  charitable  purposes  ; 
yet  the  land  was  forfeited  because  the  trustees  were 
Irishmen.  Later,  a  certain  Mrs.  Catharine  Dowdall,  a 
pious  woman,  made  a  will,  leaving  some  land,  also  for 
charitable  purposes,  to  her  chaplain,  and  the  land  was 
forfeited  because  the  priest  was  an  Irishman. 

In  the  year  1367,  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  a  third 
son  of  Edward  III.,  came  to  Ireland,  held  a  parlia- 
ment in  Kilkenny,  and  passed  certain  laws.  You 
will  scarcely  believe  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you. 
Some  of  these  were  as  follows :  If  any  man  speaks 
the  Irish  language,  or  keeps  company  with  the  Irish, 
or  adopts  Irish  customs,  his  lands  shall  be  taken  from 
him  and  forfeited  to  the  Crown  of  England.  If  an 
Englishman  married  an  Irish  woman,  what  do  you 
think  was  the  penalty?  He  was  sentenced  to  be  half 
hanged ;  to  have  his  heart  cut  out  before  he  was  dead, 
and  to  have  his  head  struck  off,  and  every  right  to  his 
land  passed  to  the  Crown  of  England.      Thus,  says 


52  Lecture  L 

Sir  John  Davis,  it  is  evident  that  the  constant  design 
of  English  legislation  in  Ireland  was  to  possess  the 
Irish  lands,  and  to  extirpate  and  exterminate  the  Irish 
people. 

Now,  citizens  of  America,  Mr.  Froude  came  here  to 
appeal  to  you  for  your  verdict,  and  he  asks  you  to  say : 
Was  not  England  justified  in  her  treatment  of  Ireland 
because  the  Irish  people  would  not  submit?  Now, 
citizens  of  America,  would  not  the  Irish  people  be  the 
vilest  dross  on  the  face  of  the  earth  if  they  submitted 
to  such  treatment  as  this  ?  Would  they  be  worthy  of 
the  name  of  men  if  they  submitted  to  be  robbed,  plun- 
dered, and  degraded  ?  It  is  true  that,  in  all  this  legis- 
lation, we  see  this  same  spirit  of  contempt  of  which  I 
spoke  in  the  beginning  of  my  lecture.  But  remember 
it  was  not  Saxon  churls  that  were  thus  despised,  and 
ask  yourselves  what  race  they  treated  with  so  much 
contumely  and  attempted  in  every  way  to  degrade 
whilst  they  were  ruining  and  robbing  them.  Spencer, 
speaking  of  the  Irish  race,  says  :  ^'  The  Irish  are  one 
of  the  most  ancient  nations  that  I  know  of  at  this  end 
of  the  world,  and  come  of  as  mighty  a  race  as  the  world 
ever  brought  forth."  He  knew  of  no  people  more  val- 
iant and  more  intellectual.  Those  who  came  over  from 
England  were  called,  by  their  own  countrymen  in  Ire- 
land, Saxon  hobs,  or  churls,  while  the  Irish  called  them 
Buddagh  Sassenach,  These  were  the  men  who  showed, 
in  the  very  system  by  which  they  were  governed,  that 
they  could  not  understand  the  genius  of  freedom  ;  that 
they  could  not  understand  the  nature  of  a  people  who 


The  Norman  Invasion,  53 

refused  to  be  slaves.  They  were  slaves  themselves. 
Consider  the  nature  of  the  feudal  system  under  which 
they  lived.  According  to  the  feudal  system  of  govern- 
ment, the  King  of  England  was  lord  of  every  inch  of 
land  in  England.  Every  foot  of  land  in  England  was 
the  king's,  and  the  nobles  who  had  the  land  held  it 
from  the  king — held  it  under  feudal  conditions,  the 
most  degrading  that  can  be  imagined.  For  instance, 
if  a  man  died  and  left  his  heir,  a  son  or  daughter,  under 
age,  the  heir  or  heiress,  together  with  the  estate,  went 
into  the  hands  of  the  king.  He  migLt  perhaps  leave 
a  widow  with  ten  children.  She  would  have  to  sup- 
port all  the  children  herself  out  of  her  dower,  but  the 
estate  and  the  eldest  son  or  the  eldest  daughter  went 
into  the  hands  of  the  king.  Then,  during  their  mi- 
nority, the  king  could  spend  the  revenues  or  could  sell 
the  castle  and  sell  the  estate  without  being  questioned 
by  any  one ;  and  when  the  son  or  daughter  came  of 
age,  he  then  sold  them  in  marriage  to  the  highest 
bidder.  We  have  Godfrey  of  Mandeville  buying  for 
twenty  thousand  marks,  from  King  John,  the  hand  of 
Isabella,  Countess  of  Gloster.  We  have  Isabella  de 
Linjera,  another  heiress,  offering  two  hundred  marks 
to  King  John — for  what  ? — for  liberty  to  marry  who- 
ever she  liked,  and  not  be  obliged  to  marry  the  man 
he  would  give  her.  If  a  widow  lost  her  husband,  the 
moment  the  breath  was  out  of  him  the  lady  and  the 
estate  were  in  the  king's  or  suzerain's  possession,  and 
he  might  squander  the  estate  or  do  whatever  he  liked 
with  it,  and  then  he  could  sell  the  woman.     We  have 


54  Lecture  L 

a  curious  example  of  this.  We  find  Alice,  Countess 
of  Warwick,  paying  King  John  one  thousand  pounds 
sterling  in  gold  for  leav^e  to  remain  a  widow  as  long  as 
she  liked,  and  then  to  marry  any  one  she  liked.  This 
was  the  slavery  called  the  feudal  system,  of  which  Mr. 
Froude  is  so  proud,  and  of  which  he  says :  It  lay  at  the 
root  of  most  that  is  noble  and  good  in  Europe.  The 
Irish  could  not  understand  it — small  blame  to  them. 
But  when  the  Irish  people  found  that  they  were  to  be 
hunted  down  like  wolves — found  their  lands  were  to 
be  taken  from  them  and  that  there  was  no  redress,  over 
and  over  again  the  Irish  people  sent  up  petitions  to 
the  King  of  England  to  give  them  the  benefit  of  the 
English  law,  and  they  would  be  amenable  to  it ;  but 
they  were  denied  and  told  that  they  should  remain  as 
they  were,  that  is  to  say,  England  was  determined  to 
extirpate  them,  and  get  every  foot  of  Irish  soil.  This 
is  the  one  leading  idea  or  principle  which  animated 
England  in  her  treatment  of  Ireland  throughout  those 
four  hundred  years,  and  it  is  the  only  clue  you  can 
find  to  that  turmoil,  and  misery,  and  constant  fighting 
which  was  going  on  in  Ireland  during  that  time.  Sir 
James  Cusack,  the  English  Commissioner  sent  over  by 
Henry  VIII.,  wrote  to  his  Majesty  these  quaint  words  : 
"  The  Irish  be  of  opinion  amongst  themselves  that  the 
English  wish  to  get  all  their  lands,  and  to  root  them 
out  completely.'*  He  just  struck  the  nail  on  the  head. 
Mr.  Froude  himself  acknowledges  that  the  land  ques- 
tion lies  at  the  root  of  the  whole  business.  Nay, 
more,  the  feudal  system  would  have  handed  over  every 


The  Norman  Invasion,  55 

inch  of  land  in  Ireland  to  the  Norman  king  and  his 
Norman  nobles,  and  the  O'Briens,  the  O'Tooles,  the 
O'Donnells  and  the  O'Connors  were  of  more  ancient 
and  better  blood  than  that  of  William,  the  bastard 
Norman. 

The  Saxon  might  submit  to  feudal  law  and  be  crush- 
ed into  a  slave,  a  clod  of  the  earth — the  Celt  never 
could.  England's  great  mistake — m  my  soul  I  am  con- 
vinced that  the  great  mistake,  of  all  others  the  great- 
est— lay  in  this,  that  the  English  people  never  realized 
the  fact  that  in  dealing  with  the  Irish  they  had  to  deal 
with  the  proudest  race  upon  the  face  of  the  earth. 
During  these  wars  the  Norman  earls,  the  Ormonds,  the 
Desmonds,  the  Geraldines,  the  De  Burghes,  were  at 
the  head  and  front  of  every  rebellion.  The  English 
complained  of  them,  and  said  they  were  worse  than 
the  Irish  rebels  ;  that  they  were  constantly  stirring  up 
disorders.  Do  you  know  the  reason  why?  Because 
they,  as  Normans,  were  under  the  feudal  laws,  and 
therefore  the  king's  sheriff  would  come  down  on  them 
at  every  turn  with  fines  and  forfeitures  of  the  land 
held  from  the  king.  So,  by  keeping  the  country  in 
disorder,  they  were  always  able  to  elude  the  sheriffs, 
and  they  preferred  the  Irish  freedom  to  the  English 
feudalism — therefore,  they  fomented  and  kept  up  these 
discords.  It  was  the  boast  of  my  kinsmen  of  Clan- 
ricarde  that,  with  the  blessing  of  God,  they  would 
never  allow  a  king's  writ  to  run  in  Connaught.  Dealing 
with  this  period  of  our  history,  Mr.  Froude  says  that 
the  Irish  chieftains  and  their  septs  or  tribes  were  doing 


$6  Lecture  L 

this  or  that  mischief,  the  Geraldines,  the  Desmonds, 
and  the  Ormonds.  I  say  in  reply  to  this,  that  the  Ger- 
aldines and  the  Ormonds  were  not  the  Irish  people,  so 
don't  father  their  acts  upon  the  Irish ;  the  Irish  chief- 
tains have  enough  to  answer  for.  During  these  four 
hundred  years,  I  protest  to  you  that  in  this  most  ♦♦ 
melancholy  period  of  our  sad  history  I  have  found  but 
two  cases,  two  instances,  that  cheer  me  ;  and  both 
were  the  action  of  native  Irish  chieftains.  In  one  we 
find  that  in  1339,  Turlough  O'Connor  put  away  his  law- 
ful wife  Dervail,  daughter  of  Hugh  O'Donnell  of  Tyr- 
connel,  and  took  to  him  the  daughter  of  Turlough 
O'Brien.  With  the  spirit  of  their  heroic  ancestors, 
the  Irish  chieftains  of  Connaught  came  together,  de- 
posed him,  and  drove  him  out  of  the  place  in  1342, 
after  three  years'  incessant  warfare.  Later  on  we  find 
another  chieftain,  Brian  McMahon,  who  induced  Sorley 
McDonnell,  chief  of  the  Hebrides,  to  put  away  his 
lawful  wife  and  marry  a  daughter  of  his  own.  The 
following  year  they  fell  out,  and  McMahon  drowned 
his  own  son-in-law.  The  chiefs,  O'Donnell  and 
O'Neill,  came  together  with  their  forces  and  deposed 
McMahon,  in  the  cause  of  virtue,  honor,  and  woman- 
hood. I  have  looked  in  vain  through  these  four  hun- 
dred years  for  one  single  trait  of  generosity  or  of  the 
assertion  of  virtue  among  the  Anglo-Norman  chiefs, 
and  the  dark  picture  is  only  relieved  by  these  two 
gleams  of  Irish  patriotism  and  Irish  zeal  in  the  cause 
of  virtue,  honor,  and  purity. 

Now,  my  friends,  Mr.  Froude  opened  another  ques- 


The  Norman  Invasion,  57 

tlon  in  his  first  lecture.  All  this  time,  while  the  Eng- 
lish monarchs  were  engaged  in  trying  to  subjugate 
Scotland  and  subdue  their  French  provinces,  the  Irish 
were  rapidly  gaining  ground,  coming  in  and  entering 
the  Pale  year  by  year ;  the  English  power  in  Ireland 
was  in  danger  of  annihilation,  and  the  only  thing  that 
saved  it  was  the  love  of  the  Irish  for  their  own  inde- 
pendent way  of  fighting,  which,  though  favorable 
to  freedom,  was  hostile  to  national  unity.  He  says, 
speaking  of  that  time.  Would  it  not  have  been  bet- 
ter to  have  allowed  the  Irish  chieftains  to  govern  their 
own  people,  and  give  the  Irish  their  freedom  ?  And  he 
answers.  Freedom  to  whom  ? — freedom  to  the  bad,  to 
the  violent?  It  is  no  freedom.  I  deny  that  the 
Irish  chieftains,  with  all  their  faults,  were,  as  a  class, 
bad  men  or  violent  men.  I  deny  that  they  were  en- 
gaged, as  Mr.  Froude  says,  in  cutting  their  people's 
throats,  that  they  were  a  people  who  would  never  be 
satisfied.  Mr.  Froude  tells  us  emphatically  and  sig- 
nificantly, that  *^  the  Irish  people  were  satisfied  with 
their  chieftains,"  but  people  are  not  satisfied  under  a 
system  where  their  throats  are  being  cut.  The  Irish 
chieftains  were  the  bane  of  Ireland  by  their  divisions ; 
the  Irish  chieftains  were  the  ruin  of  their  country  by 
their  want  of  union  and  want  of  generous  acquiescence 
to  some  great  and  noble  head  that  would  save  them 
by  uniting  them.  The  Irish  chieftains,  even  in  the 
days  of  the  heroic  Edward  Bruce,  did  not  rally  around 
him  as  they  ought.  In  their  divisions  is  the  secret  of 
Ireland's  slavery  and  ruin  through  those  years.     But 

3* 


58  Lecture  L     The  Normait  Invasion, 

with  all  that,  history  attests  that  they  were  still  mag- 
nanimous enough  to  be  the  fathers  of  their  people,  and 
to  be  the  natural  leaders,  as  God  intended  them  to  be, 
of  their  septs,  families,  and  namesakes.  And  they 
struck  whatever  blow  they  did  strike  in  what  they  im- 
agined to  be  the  cause  of  right,  justice,  and  principle, 
and  the  only  blow  that  came  in  the  cause  of  outraged 
honor  and  purity,  came  from  the  hands  of  the  Irish 
chiefs,  in  those  dark  and  dreadful  years. 

Now,  I  will  endeavor  to  follow  this  learned  gentle- 
man in  his  subsequent  lectures.  Now  a  darker  cloud 
than  that  of  mere  invasion  is  lowering  over  Ireland ; 
now  comes  the  demon  of  religious  discord — the  sword 
of  religious  persecution  waving  over  the  distracted  and 
exhausted  land.  And  we  shall  see  whether  this  his- 
torian has  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  great  contest 
that  followed,  and  that  in  our  day  has  ended  in  a  glo- 
rious victory  for  Ireland's  Church  and  Ireland*s  nation- 
ality, and  which  will  be  followed  as  assuredly  by  tri- 
umphs still  more  glorious  in  the  future. 


LECTURE  II. 

IRELAND   UNDER  THE 
TUDORS. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  We  now  come  to  con- 
sider the  second  lecture  of  the  eminent  English  histo- 
rian who  has  come  among  us.  It  covers  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  terrible  passages  in  our  history. 
It  takes  in  three  reigns — the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. ,  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  the  reign  of  James  I.  I  scarce- 
ly consider  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  or  of  Philip  and 
Mary,  worth  counting.  The  learned  gentleman  began 
his  second  lecture  with  rather  a  startling  paradox.  He 
asserted  that  Henry  VIII.  was  a  hater  of  disorder. 
Now,  my  dear  friends,  every  man  in  this  world  has  his 
hero;  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  every  man 
selects  some  character  out  of  history  that  he  admires, 
until,  at  length,  by  continually  dwelling  on  the  virtues 
and  excellencies  of  his  hero,  he  comes  to  almost  wor- 
ship him.  Before  us  all  lie  the  grand  historic  names 
that  are  written  in  the  world's  annals,  and  every  man 
is  free  to  select  the  character  that  he  likes  best,  and  he 


6o  Lecture  IL 

thus  choses  his  hero.  Using  this  privilege,  Mr.  Froude 
has  made  the  most  singular  selection  of  a  hero  that  you 
or  I  ever  heard  of.  His  hero  is  Henry  VHI.  It  speaks 
volumes  for  the  integrity  of  Mr.  Froude's  own  mind. 
It  is  a  strong  argument  that  he  possesses  a  charity 
most  sublime,  when  he  has  been  enabled  to  discover 
virtues  in  the  historical  character  of  one  of  the  great- 
est monsters  that  ever  cursed  the  earth.  He  has,  how- 
ever, succeeded  in  this,  to  us,  apparent  impossibility; 
he  has  discovered  among  many  other  shining  virtues 
in  the  character  of  the  English  Nero  a  great  love  for 
order,  a  great  hatred  of  disorder.  Well,  we  must  stop 
at  the  very  first  sentence  of  the  learned  gentleman  and 
try  to  analyze  it  and  see  how  much  there  is  of  truth  in 
this  word  of  the  historian,  and  how  much  there  is 
which  is  honorable  to  him  and  a  charitable  though 
strange  figment  of  his  imagination.  All  order  in  the 
state  is  based  upon  three  great  principles,  my  friends. 
First,  the  supremacy  of  the  law  ;  second,  respect  for 
the  existence  as  well  as  liberty  of  conscience  ;  and 
third,  a  tender  regard  for  that  which  lies  at  the  foun- 
tain-head of  all  human  society,  namely,  the  sanctity  of 
the  marriage  tie. 

The  first  element  of  order  in  every  state  is  the  su- 
premacy of  the  law,  for  in  this  supremacy  lies  the 
very  quintessence  of  human  freedom  and  of  all  order. 
The  law  is  supposed  to  be,  according  to  the  definition 
of  Aquinas,  "  the  judgment  pronounced  by  profound 
reason  and  intellect,  thinking  and  legislating  for  the 
public  good.**     The  law,  therefore,  is  the  expression  of 


Ireland  under  the  Tudor s,  6i 

reason — reason  backed  by  authority,  reason  influenced 
by  the  noble  motive  of  the  pubHc  good.  This  being 
the  nature  of  law,  the  very  first  thing  that  is  demand- 
ed for  the  law  is  that  every  man  shall  bow  down  to  it 
and  obey  it.  No  man  in  any  community  has  any 
right  to  claim  exemption  from  obedience  to  the 
law ;  least  of  all  the  man  who  is  at  the  head  of  the 
community,  because  he  is  supposed  to  represent 
before  the  nation  that  principle  of  obedience  with- 
out which  all  national  order  and  happiness  perishes 
among  the  people.  Was  Henry  VIII.  an  upholder 
of  the  law  ?  Was  he  obedient  to  the  laws  ?  I  deny 
it,  and  I  have  the  evidence  of  all  history  to  back  me 
up  in  that  denial,  and  I  brand  Henry  VIII.  as  one 
of  the  greatest  enemies  of  freedom  and  law  that  ever 
lived  in  this  world,  and  consequently  one  of  the  great- 
est tyrants.  My  friends,  I  shall  only  give  you  one 
example  out  of  ten  thousand  which  might  be  taken 
from  the  history  of  the  time.  When  Henry  VIII. 
broke  with  the  Pope,  he  called  upon  his  subjects 
to  acknowledge  him — bless  the  mark  ! — as  spiritual 
head  of  the  Church.  There  were  three  abbots  of 
three  Charter-houses  in  and  near  London,  who  refused 
to  acknowledge  Henry  as  the  supreme  spiritual  head 
of  the  Church.  He  had  them  arrested  and  held  for 
trial,  and  he  had  a  jury  of  twelve  citizens  of  London 
to  sit  upon  them.'*  Now,  the  first  principle  of  English 
law,  the  grand  palladium  of  English  legislation  and 
freedom,  is  the  perfect  liberty  of  the  jury.  The  jury 
in  any  country  must  be  perfectly  free,  not  only  from 


62  Lecture  II, 

every  form  of  coercion  over  them,  but  from  even  their 
own  prejudice.  They  must  be  free  from  any  prejudg- 
ment of  the  case ;  they  must  be  perfectly  impartial, 
and  perfectly  free  to  record  the  verdict  at  which  their 
impartial  judgment  has  arrived.  Those  twelve  men 
refused  to  convict  the  three  abbots  of  high  treason, 
and  they  grounded  their  refusal  upon  this:  Never, 
they  said,  has  it  been  uttered  in  England  that  it  was 
high  treason  to  deny  the  spiritual  supremacy  of  the 
king.  It  is  not  law,  and  therefore  we  cannot  find 
these  men  guilty  of  high  treason.  What  did  Henry 
do?  He  sent  word  to  the  jury  that  if  they  did  not 
find  the  three  abbots  guilty  he  would  visit  them  with 
the  same  penalties  which  he  had  intended  for  the 
prisoners.  He  sent  word  to  the  jury  that  they  should 
find  them  guilty.  I  brand  Henry,  therefore,  Avith 
having  torn  in  pieces  the  Constitution  of  England, 
Magna  Charta,  and  of  having  trampled  upon  the  first 
great  element  of  law  and  jurisprudence,  namely,  the 
liberty  of  the  jury.  Citizens  of  America,  would  any 
of  you  like  to  be  tried  for  treason  by  a  jury  of  twelve 
men  to  whom  the  President  of  the  United  States  had 
said  that  if  they  failed  to  find  you  guilty  he  would  put 
them  to  death  ?  Where  would  there  be  liberty,  where 
would  be  law  if  such  a  transaction  were  permitted? 
But  this  was  done  by  Mr.  Froude's  great  admirer  of 
order,  and  hero,  Henry  VHI. 

The  second  grand  element  of  order  is  respect  for 
conscience.  The  conscience  of  a  man,  and  conse- 
quently of  a  nation,  is  supposed  to  be  the  great  guide 


Ireland  mider  the  Titdors.  63 

in  all  the  relations  that  individuals  or  the  people  bear 
to  God.  The  conscience  is  so  free  that  Almighty  God 
himself  respects  it ;  and  it  is  a  theological  axiom  that  if 
a  man  does  a  wrong  act,  thinkingthat  he  is  doing  right, 
having  in  his  conscience  invincibly  the  idea  that  he  is 
doing  right,  the  wrong  will  not  be  attributed  to  him  by 
Almighty  God.  Was  this  man  Henry  a  respecter 
of  conscience  ?  Again,  out  of  ten  thousand  instances 
of  his  contempt  for  liberty  of  conscience,  let  me  select 
one.  He  ordered  the  people  of  England  to  change 
their  religion.  He  ordered  them  to  give  up  that 
grand  system  of  dogmatic  teaching  which  is  in  the 
Catholic  Church,  where  every  man  knows  what  to 
believe,  and  what  to  do.  And  what  religion  did  he 
offer  them  instead  ?  He  did  not  offer  them  Protest- 
antism, for  Henry  VHI.  never  was  a  Protestant,  and 
to  the  last  day  of  his  life,  if  he  had  only  been  able 
to  lay  his  hands  upon  Martin  Luther  he  would  have 
made  a  toast  of  him.  He  heard  Mass  up  to  the  day 
of  his  death,  and  after  his  death  there  was  a  solemn 
High  Mass  over  his  inflated  corpse — a  solemn  High 
Mass  that  the  Lord  might  have  mercy  on  his  soul. 
Ah,  my  friends,  some  other  poor  soul,  I  suppose,  got 
the  benefit  of  it.  What  religion  did  he  offer  the  peo- 
ple of  England.  He  simply  came  before  them  and 
said :  Let  every  man  in  the  land  agree  with  me  ;  what- 
ever I  say,  that  is  religion."  More  than  this,  his  parlia- 
ment— a  slavish  parliament,  every  man  of  which  was 
afraid  of  his  life — passed  a  law  making  it  high  treason, 
not  only  to  disagree  with  the  king  in  anything  that  he 


64  Lecture  IT, 

believed,  but  making  it  high  treason  for  any  man  to  dis- 
pute anything  that  the  king  should  ever  believe  in  a 
future  time.  He  was  net  only  the  enemy  of  conscience  ; 
he  was  the  annihilator  of  conscience.  He  would  allow 
no  man  to  have  a  conscience.  I  am  your  conscience, 
he  said  to  the  nation  ;  I  am  your  infallible  guide  in 
all  things  you  are  to  believe  and  in  all  things  you  are 
to  do  ;  and  if  any  man  sets  up  his  own  conscience 
against  me,  he  is  guilty  of  high  treason,  and  I  will 
shed  his  heart's  blood.  This  is  the  lover  of  order 
whom  Mr.  Froude  admires.  The  third  great  element 
of  order  is  that  upon  which  all  society  is  based.  The 
great  key-stone  of  society  is  the  sanctity  of  the  mar- 
riage tie.  Whatever  else  you  interfere  with  this  must 
not  be  touched,  for  Christ  our  Lord  himself  said : 
'*  Those  whom  God  has  joined  together  let  no  man 
put  asunder."  A  valid  marriage  can  only  be  dissolved 
by  the  angel  of  death.  No  power  in  Heaven  or  on 
earth,  much  less  in  hell,  can  dissolve  the  validity  of  a 
marriage.  Henry  VHI.  had  so  little  respect  for  the 
sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie,  that  he  put  away  from 
him  brutally  a  woman  to  whom  he  was  lawfully  mar- 
ried, and  took  in  her  stead,  while  she  was  yet  living,  a 
woman  who  was  supposed  to  be  his  own  daughter.  He 
married  six  wives.  Two  of  them  he  repudiated — di- 
vorced ;  two  of  them  he  beheaded ;  one  of  them  died 
in  childbirth,  and  the  sixth  and  last  wife,  Catherine 
Parr,  had  her  name  down  in  Henry's  book,  at  the  time 
of  his  death,  amongst  the  list  of  his  victims ;  he  had 
made  the  list  out,  and  if  the  monster  had  lived  a  few 


Ireland  under  the  Tudors,  65 

days  longer  she  would  have  been  sacrificed.     This  is 
all  matter  of  history. 

And  now,  I  ask  the  American  public,  is  it  fair  for 
Mr.  Froude,  or  any  other  living  man,  to  come  and 
present  himself  before  an  American  audience — an  au- 
dience of  intelligent  and  cultivated  people,  a  people 
that  have  read  history  as  well  as  the  English  histo- 
rian, and  ask  them  to  believe  the  absurd  paradox,  that 
Henry  VIII.  was  an  admirer  of  order  and  a  hater  of 
disorder?  But  Mr.  Froude  says:  Now,  this  is  not 
fair.  I  said  in  my  lecture  that  I  would  have  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  Henry's  matrimonial  transac- 
tions. Ah !  Mr.  Froude,  you  were  wise.  But  at 
least,  he  says,  in  his  relations  to  Ireland,  I  claim 
that  he  was  a  hater  of  disorder ;  and  the  proof  he 
gives  is  the  following.  First  of  all,  he  says,  that  one 
great  curse  of  Ireland  was  the  absentee  landlords,  and 
he  is  right.  Now,  Henry  VIII.  put  an  end  to  that 
business  in  the  simplest  way  imaginable  ;  he  took  the 
estates  from  the  absentees,  and  gave  them  to  other 
people.  My  friends,  it  sounds  well,  very  plausible, 
this  saying  of  the  English  historian.  Let  us  analyze  it 
a  little.  During  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  between  the 
Houses  of  York  and  Lancaster,  which  preceded  the 
Reformation  in  England,  many  English  and  Anglo- 
Norman  families  went  over  from  Ireland  to  England, 
and  joined  in  the  conflict.  It  was  an  English  ques- 
tion, and  an  English  war,  and  the  consequence  was 
that  numbers  of  the  English  settlers  retired  from  Ire- 
land, and  left  their  estates — abandoned  them  entirely. 


66  Lecture  II. 

Others,  again,  from  disgust,  or  because  they  had  large 
English  properties,  preferred  to  live  in  their  own  coun- 
try, and  retired  from  Ireland  to  live  in  England.  So 
that  when  Henry  VIII.  came  to  the  throne  of  Eng- 
land, there  remained  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
Pale  one  half  of  Louth,  West  Meath,  Dublin,  Wick- 
low,  and  Wexford.  Nothing  more.  Henry,  according 
to  Mr.  Froude,  performed  a  great  act  of  justice.  He 
took  from  these  absentees  their  estates,  and  gave  them 
— to  whom  ?  To  other  Englishmen — his  own  favor- 
ites and  friends.  Now,  the  historic  fact  is  this :  that 
the  Irish  people,  as  soon  as  the  English  retired  and 
abandoned  their  estates,  came  in  and  re-possessed 
themselves  of  their  own  property.  Mark,  my  friends, 
that  even  if  the  Irish  people  had  no  title  to  that 
property,  the  very  fact  of  the  English  having  aban- 
doned it,  gave  them  a  sufficient  title — bona  derelicta 
sunt  prhni  capientis — things  that  are  abandoned  be- 
long to  the  man  that  gets  first  hold  of  them.  But 
much  more  just  was  the  title  of  the  Irish  people  to 
that  land,  because  it  was  their  own ;  because  they 
were  unjustly  dispossessed  of  it  by  the  very  men  who 
abandoned  it  now ;  and  therefore,  they  came  in  with 
a  twofold  title,  namely:  the  land  is  ours  because  there 
is  nobody  to  claim  it,  and  even  if  there  were,  the  land 
is  ours  because  it  was  always  ours,  and  we  never  lost 
our  right  to  it. 

When,  therefore,  Henry  VIII.,  the  lover  of  order, 
dispossessed  the  absentees  of  their  estates,  he  sent  over 
other  Englishmen  who  would  reside  there,  and  handed 


Ireland  under  the  Tudor s,  6'j 

over  these  estates  to  them  ;  and  remember,  the  enforce- 
ment of  their  claims  involved  driving  the  Irish  people 
a  second  time  out  of  their  property.  There  is  the 
whole  secret  of  Henry  VIII/s  wonderful  beneficence 
to  Ireland  in  giving  us  resident  landlords.  Just  look 
at  it  yourselves ;  if  you  owned  property — there  are, 
doubtless,  a  great  many  here  owners  of  property — ^just 
picture  to  yourselves  the  United  States  Government, 
or  the  President  of  the  United  States  turning  you  out 
of  your  property,  taking  your  houses  and  lots  and  land 
from  you,  and  giving  them  to  some  friend  of  his  own, 
and  then  saying  to  you,  **  Now,  my  friends,  you  must 
remember  I  am  a  lover  of  order ;  I  have  given  you  a 
resident  landlord."  Henry,  as  soon  as  he  ascended  the 
throne,  sent  over  the  Earl  of  Surrey  to  Ireland,  in  the 
year  1520.  Surrey  was  a  brave  soldier,  a  stern,  ener- 
getic man,  and  Henry  thought  that  by  sending  him 
over  to  Ireland  and  backing  him  with  a  large  army,  he 
would  be  able  to  reduce  to  order  the  disorderly  ele- 
ments of  the  Irish  nation.  That  disorder  reigned  in 
Ireland  I  am  the  first  to  admit,  but  in  tracing  this  to 
its  cause  I  claim  that  the  cause  was  not  in  any  inherent 
love  for  disorder  in  the  Irish  character — they  were  al- 
ways ready  to  fight,  I  grant.  But,  I  hold  and  claim 
that  the  great  cause  of  all  the  disorder  and  turmoil  of 
Ireland  was  the  strange  and  incongruous  legislation  of 
England  for  four  hundred  years  previous  ;  and,  secondly, 
the  presence  of  the  Anglo-Norman  lords  in  Ireland,  who 
were  anxious  to  keep  up  the  disorders  in  the  country, 
in  order  that  they  might  have  an  excuse  for  not  paying 


68  Lecture  IL 

their  duties  to  the  feudal  king.'*  Sir  John  Davies 
attorney-general  of  King  James  I.  says,  that  ''  the 
truth  is  that  in  time  of  peace  the  Irish  are  more  fearful 
to  offend  the  law  than  the  English  or  any  other  nation 
whatsoever.  There  is  no  nation  of  people  under  the 
sun  that  doth  love  equal  and  indifferent  justice  better 
than  the  Irish,  or  will  rest  better  satisfied  with  the 
execution  thereof,  although  it  be  against  themselves, 
so  that  they  have  the  protection  and  benefits  of  the 
law,  when,  upon  just  cause,  they  do  desire  it.**  Surrey 
came  over  and  tried  the  strong  hand  for  a  time  ;  but 
he  found — brave  as  he  was,  and  accomplished  in  gene- 
ralship— that  the  Irish  were  a  little  too  many  for  him, 
and  he  sent  word  to  Henry  :  **  These  people,"  he  says, 
**can  only  be  subdued  by  conquering  them  utterly  *'  — 
cutting  off  all  of  them  by  fire  and  sword.  ^^  Now,*'  he 
says,  **  this  you  will  not  be  able  to  do,  because  the 
country  is  too  large,  and  because  the  country  is  so 
geographically  fixed  that  it  is  impossible  for  an  army  to 
penetrate  its  fastnesses,  and  to  subjugate  the  whole  peo- 
ple.'* Then  it  was  that  Henry  VIII.  took  up  the  policy 
of  conciliation.  He  could  not  help  it.  Mr.  Froude 
makes  it  a  great  virtue  in  Henry  that  he  tried  in  this 
to  conciliate  the  Irish  people.  He  took  up  that  policy 
because  he  had  to  do  it,  because  he  could  not  help  it. 
Now,  my  friends,  there  is  one  passage  in  the  corre- 
spondence between  Surrey  and  Henry  VIII.  that 
speaks  volumes,  and  it  is  this :  When  the  Earl  of  Sur- 
rey arrived  in  Ireland,  he  found  himself  in  the  midst 
of  war  and  confusion,  but  the  people  that  were  really 


Ireland  under  the  Tudor s,  69 

the  source  of  all  that  confusion,  he  declares,  were  not 
so  much  the  Irish  or  their  chiefs  as  the  Anglo-Norman 
or  English  lords  in  Ireland.  Here  is  the  passage  in 
question.  There  were  two  chieftains  of  the  McCar- 
thies,  Cormac  Oge  McCarthy,  and  McCarthy  Ruagh 
or  Red  McCarthy.  Surrey  writes  of  these  two  men  to 
Henry  VIII.,  and  he  says  :  *^  They  are  two  wise  men, 
and  more  conformable  to  order  than  most  Englishmen 
were."  Out  of  the  lips  of  one  of  Ireland's  bitterest 
enemies  I  take  an  answer  to  Mr.  Froude's  repeated 
allegation  that  the  Irish  are  so  disorderly  and  such 
lovers  of  turmoil  and  confusion,  that  the  only  way  to 
reduce  us  to  order  is  to  sweep  us  away  altogether. 
The  next  feature  in  Surrey's  policy,  when  he  found 
that  he  could  not  conquer  with  the  sword,  was  to  set 
chieftain  against  chieftain.  And  so  he  writes  to  Hen- 
ry: I  am  endeavoring,  he  says,  to  perpetuate  the 
animosity  between  O'Donnell  and  O'Neill  of  Ulster 
— here  are  his  words — ^*  for  it  would  be  dangerful  to 
have  them  both  agree  and  join  together."  It  would 
be  dangerous  to  England.  Well  may  Mr.  Froude  say 
that  in  the  day  when  we  Irishmen  are  united,  we  shall 
be  invincible,  and.  no  power  on  earth  shall  keep  us 
slaves.  '^  It  would  be  dangerful  to  have  them  agree 
and  join  together,  and  the  longer  they  continue  in 
war  the  better  it  shall  be  for  your  grace's  poor  sub- 
jects here."  Now  mark  the  spirit  of  that  letter.  It 
tells  the  whole  genius  and  spirit  of  England's  treat- 
ment of  Ireland.  He  does  not  speak  of  the  Irish  as 
the  subjects  of  the  King  of  England.     He  has  not  the 


yo  Lecture  II, 

slightest  consideration  for  the  unfortunate  Irish  whom 
they  were  pitting  against  each  other.  Let  them  bleed, 
he  says ;  the  longer  they  continue  at  war,  and  the 
greater  number  of  them  that  are  swept  away,  the  bet- 
ter it  will  be  for  your  grace's  poor  subjects  here.  Party 
legislation,  party  laws,  intended  only  to  protect  the 
English  settlers,  and  exterminate  the  Irishmen.  This,  ** 
Sir  John  Davis  himself  declared,  lay  at  the  bottom  of 
the  English  legislation  for  Ireland  for  four  hundred 
years,  and  was  the  cause  of  all  the  evils  and  miseries  of 
the  country.  Surrey  retired  after  two  years,  and  then, 
according  to  Mr.  Froude,  Henry  tried  ^'  home  rule  '* 
in  Ireland.  Here,  again,  the  learned  historian  tries  to 
make  a  point  for  his  hero.  Irishmen,  he  says,  admire 
the  memory  of  this  man.  He  tried  home  rule  with 
you,  and  he  found  that  you  were  not  able  to  govern 
yourselves,  and  then  he  was  obliged  to  take  the  whip 
and  use  it.  Let  us  see  what  kind  of  home  rule  Henry 
tried.  One  would  imagine  that  home  rule  in  Ireland 
meant  that  Irishmen  should  manage  their  own  affairs, 
make  their  own  laws.  It  either  means  this  or  it  means 
nothing.  It  is  a  delusion,  a  mockery,  and  a  snare  un- 
less it  means  that  the  Irish  people  have  a  right  to  as- 
semble in  their  parliament  and  govern  themselves,  by 
legislating  for  themselves,  and  making  their  own  laws. 
Did  Henry  VIII. *s '' home  rule"  mean  this?  Not  a 
bit  of  it.  All  he  did  was  to  make  the  Earl  of  Kil- 
dare  Lord  Lieutenant,  or  Lord  Deputy  of  Ireland,  to 
please  the  Irishmen,  that  is  to  say,  the  Anglo-Norman 
Irishmen.     In  this  consists  the  whole  scheme  of  home 


Ireland  under  the  Tudor s.  7 1 

rule  attributed  by  Mr.  Froude  to  Henry  VIII.  He 
did  not  call  upon  the  Irish  nation  and  say  to  them : 
Return  your  members  to  parliament,  and  I  will  allow 
you  to  make  your  own  laws.  He  did  not  call  upon 
the  Irish  chieftains — the  natural  representatives  of  the 
nation,  the  men  in  whose  veins  flowed  the  blood  of 
Ireland's  chieftainship  for  thousands  of  years.  He 
did  not  call  upon  the  O'Briens,  the  O'Neills,  the 
McCarthymore,  and  the  O'Connors,  and  say  to  them  : 
Come,  assemble,  and  make  laws  for  yourselves,  and  if 
they  are  just  laws,  I  will  set  my  seal  upon  them  and 
allow  you  to  govern  Ireland  through  your  own  legisla- 
tion. No  ;  but  he  set  a  clique  of  Anglo-Norman  lords, 
the  most  unruly,  the  most  lawless,  and  the  most  rest- 
less pack  ever  heard  of  or  read  of  in  all  history,  he 
set  these  men  to  take  the  government  of  the  country 
for  a  time  into  their  hands,  and  what  was  the  conse- 
quence ?  No  sooner  did  he  leave  them  to  govern  than 
they  began  to  make  war  on  the  Irish — to  tear  them  to 
pieces.  The  first  thing  that  Kildare  does  after  his  ap- 
pointment in  1522,  is  to  summon  an  army  and  lay 
waste  the  territories  of  the  Irish  chieftains  around 
him,  to  kill  their  people,  to  burn  their  villages.  After 
a  time  they  fell  out  among  themselves.  The  great 
Anglo-Norman  family  of  the  Butlers  became  jealous 
of  Kildare,  who  w^as  a  Fitzgerald,  and  they  began  to 
accuse  him  of  treason  ;  and  on  two  occasions  it  is  really 
true  that  Kildare  did  carry  on  a  treasonable  corre- 
spondence, in  the  year  15 14,  with  Francis  I.,  King  of 
France,  and  Charles  V.,  Emperor  of  Germany.  He  was 


72  Lecture  II. 

called  to  England  for  the  third  time  to  answer 
for  his  conduct  in  1534,  and  there  Henry  put  him 
in  prison.  While  he  was  in  the  Tower  in  London, 
his  son,  Thomas  Fitzgerald,  who  was  called  '*  Silken 
Thomas,'*  a  brave  young  man,  revolted  because  his 
father  was  in  prison,  and  they  told  him  Henry  *• 
intended  to  put  him  to  death.  Henry  declared  war 
against  him,  and  he  against  the  King  of  England,  and 
the  consequence  of  that  war  was  that  a  portion  of  the 
province  of  Munster,  and  a  great  part  of  Leinster,  was 
ravaged  by  the  king's  armies,  the  people  destroyed, 
and  the  towns  and  villages  burned,  until,  at  length, 
there  was  not  as  much  left  as  would  feed  man  or  beast. 
And  so,  under  the  home  rule  of  Henry,  the  troubles 
with  the  Norman  lords  and  the  treason  of  Kildare 
ended  in  the  ruin  of  large  numbers  of  the  Irish  peo- 
ple. Perhaps  you  will  ask  me — Did  the  Irish  people 
take  part  in  that  war  so  as  to  justify  Henry's  share  in 
the  awful  treatment  they  received?  I  answer,  they 
took  no  part  in  it ;  it  was  an  English  business  from  be- 
ginning to  end.  O'CarroU,  O'More  of  Ossory,  and 
O'Conor,  these  were  the  only  chieftains  that  sided 
with  the  Geraldines  at  all,  and  drew  the  sword  against 
England ;  and  they  were  three  chiefs  of  rather  small 
importance,  and  by  no  means  represented  the  Irish, 
as  it  was  called,  of  Munster,  or  any  other  Irish  prov- 
ince. And  yet  upon  the  Irish  people  fell  the  aveng- 
ing hand  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  armies.  Mr.  Froude 
goes  on  to  say  that  "  the  Irish  people,  somehow  or 
other,  got  to  like  Henry  VIII."     Well,  if  they  did,  I 


Ireland  under  the  Ttcdors.  73 

don't  admire  their  taste.  He  pleased  them,  said  Mr. 
Froude — and  he  assigns  the  reason.  It  was  that 
Henry  never  showed  any  disposition  to  dispossess 
the  Irish  people  of  their  lands  and  to  exterminate 
them.  Honest  Henry !  Now,  I  take  him  up  on  that 
point.  Fortunately  for  the  Irish  historian,  the  State 
papers  are  open  to  us  as  well  as  to  Mr.  Froude. 
What  do  the  State  papers  of  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.  tell  us  ?  They  tell  us  that  project  after  pro- 
ject was  formed  during  the  reign  of  this  monarch  to 
drive  all  the  Irish  nation  into  Connaught,  over  the 
Shannon ; — that  Henry  wished  to  do  away  with  the 
Irish  race  altogether.  Henry  wished  it,  and  the  peo- 
ple of  England  desired  it ;  and  one  of  these  State 
papers  ends  in  these  words  :  *^  Consequently  the  pre- 
mise brought  to  pass,  there  shall  no  Irish  be  on  this 
side  of  the  waters  of  Shannon,  unpersecuted,  unsub- 
jected,  and  unexiled ;  then  shall  the  English  Pale  be 
well  two  hundred  Irish  miles  long,  and  more."  More 
than  this,  we  have  the  evidence  of  the  State  papers 
of  the  time  that  Henry  VIII.  contemplated  the  utter 
extirpation  and  sweeping  destruction  of  the  whole 
Irish  race.  We  find  even  the  Lord  Deputy  and 
Council  in  Dublin  writing  to  his  Majesty,  and  suggest- 
ing to  hi-m  the  difficulty  of  realizing  his  design. 
Here  are  the  very  words :  ^'  The  land  is  very  large, 
by  estimation  as  large  as  England,  so  that  to  inhabit 
the  whole  with  new  inhabitors,  the  number  would  be 
so  great  that  there  is  no  prince  christened  that  com- 
modiously  might  spare  so   many  subjects  to  depart 

4 


74  Lecture  II, 

out  of  his  regions ;  but  to  enterprise  the  whole  extir- 
pation and  total  desti  action  of  all  the  Irishmen  of 
the  land,  it  would  be  a  marvellous  and  sumptuous 
charge  and  great  difficulty,  considering  both  the  lack 
of  inhabitors,  and  the  great  hardness  and  misery  these 
Irishmen  can  endure,  both  of  hunger,  cold  and  thirst, 
and  evil  lodging,  more  than  the  inhabitants  of  any 
other  land.  And  by  precedent  of  the  conquest  of  this 
land,  we  have  not  heard  or  read  in  any  chronicle  that 
at  such  conquests  the  whole  inhabitants  of  the  lands 
have  been  utterly  extirped  and  banished." 

Great  God !  is  this  the  man  that  Mr.  Froude  tells 
us  was  the  friend  of  the  Irish,  and  never  showed  any 
desire  to  take  their  lands  and  dispossess  and  destroy 
them?  This  is  the  man — the  model  admirer  of  order 
and  hater  of  disorder.  Surely  he  was  about  to  create 
a  magnificent  order ;  for  his  idea  was,  if  a  people  are 
troublesome,  and  you  want  to  reduce  them  to  quiet, 
the  best  way  and  the  simplest  way  is  to  kill  them 
all.  Just  like  some  of  those  people  in  England  ;  those 
nurses  we  read  of  a  few  years  ago,  that  were  farming 
out  children.  When  the  child  was  a  little  fractious 
they  gave  him  a  nice  little  dose  of  poison,  and  they 
called  it  **  quietness.'*  Do  you  know  the  reason  why 
Henry  VIII.  pleased  the  Irish?  for  there  is  no  doubt 
about  it ;  they  were  more  pleased  with  him  than  with 
any  English  monarch  up  to  that  time.  The  reason  is 
a  very  simple  one.  He  had  his  own  designs ;  but 
while  concealing  them  he  was  meditating,  like  an 
anticipated  Oliver  Cromwell,  the  utter  ruin  and  de- 


Ireland  under  the  Tudor s.  75 

struction  of  all  the  Irish  race ;  but  he  had  the  good 
sense  to  keep  it  to  himself,  and  he  only  comes  out 
in  his  State  papers.  But  he  treated  the  Irish  with 
a  certain  amount  of  courtesy  and  politeness.  '  Henry, 
with  all  his  faults,  was  a  learned  man — an  accom- 
plished man — a  man  of  very  elegant  manners,  a  man 
with  a  bland  smile,  who  would  give  you  a  warm 
shake  of  the  hand  ;  it  is  true  he  might  the  next  day 
have  your  head  cut  off,  but  still  he  had  the  manners 
of  a  gentleman ;  and  it  is  a  singular  fact,  my  friends, 
that  the  two  most  gentlemanly  kings  of  England  were 
the  greatests  coundrels  that  ever  lived:  Henry  VIII. 
and  George  IV.  Accordingly  he  dealt  with  the  Irish 
people  with  a  certain  amount  of  civility  and  courtesy ; 
he  did  not  come  amongst  them  like  all  his  prede- 
cessors, saying :  You  are  the  king's  enemies ;  you 
are  to  be  all  put  to  death  ;  you  are  without  the  pale 
of  the  law ;  you  are  barbarians  and  savages ;  I  will 
have  nothing  to  say  to  you.  Not  a  bit  of  it.  Henry 
came  and  said :  Let  us  see  if  we  cannot  arrange  our 
difficulties,  if  we  can't  live  in  peace  and  quiet?  And 
the  Irish  were  charmed  with  the  man's  manners. 
Ah !  my  friends,  it  is  true  that  there  was  a  black  heart 
under  that  smiling  face,  but  it  is  also  true,  as  Mr.  Froude 
alleges,  that  Henry  VIII.  had  a  certain  amount  of  popu- 
larity amongst  the  Irish  people ;  which  proves  that  if 
the  English  only  knew  how  to  treat  us  with  respect 
and  courtesy  and  with  some  show  of  kindness,  they 
would  have  long  since  won  the  heart  of  Ireland,  instead 
of  embittering  it  as  much   by    the   haughtiness   and 


"j^  Lecture  II, 

stupid  pride  of  their  manner  as  by  the  injustice  and 
cruelty  of  their  laws.  A.nd  this  is  what  I  meant  when 
on  last  Tuesday  evening  I  asserted  that  English  con- 
tempt for  Ireland  is  the  real  evil  that  lies  deeply  at  the 
root  of  all  the  bad  spirit  that  exists  between  the  two 
nations,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  Irish  people  are 
too  intellectual,  too  strong,  too  energetic,  too  pure  of 
race  and  blood,  too  ancient  and  too  proud  to  be  de- 
spised. 

And  now,  my  friends,  Mr.  Froude  went  on  in  his  lec- 
tures to  give  a  proof  of  the  great  love  that  the  Irish 
people  had  for  Henry  VIII.  He  says  that  they  were 
so  fond  of  this  king,  they  actually,  at  the  king*s  request, 
threw  the  Pope  overboard.  Now,  Mr.  Froude,  fond 
as  we  were  of  your  glorious  hero,  we  were  not 
so  enamored  of  him,  we  had  not  fallen  so  deeply  in 
love  with  him  as  to  give  up  the  Pope  for  him.  What 
are  the  facts  of  the  case?  Henry,  about  the  year  1530, 
got  into  difficulties  with  the  Pope,  which  ended  in  his 
denying  the  authority  and  the  supremacy  of  the  head  of 
the  Catholic  Church.  He  then  picked  out  an  apostate 
monk,  a  man  who  had  given  up  his  faith,  a  man  with- 
out a  shadow  of  either  conscience,  character,  or  virtue, 
and  he  had  him  consecrated  the  first  Protestant  Arch- 
bishop of  Dublin.  This  was  an  Englishman  by  the 
name  of  Brown  ;  and  he  sent  George  Brown  over  to 
Dublin  in  1534  with  a  commission  to  get  the  Irish 
nation  to  follow  in  the  wake  of  England,  and  throw  the 
Pope  overboard  and  acknowledge  Henry's  supremacy. 
Brown  arrived  in  Dublin,  and  he  called  the  bishops 


Ireland  under  the  Tudors,  yy 

together — the  bishops  of  the  Catholic  Church — and  he 
said  to  them :  You  must  change  your  allegiance,  you 
must  give  up  the  Pope,  and  take  Henry,  the  King  of. 
England,  in  his  stead.  The  Archbishop  of  Armagh  in 
these  days  was  an  Englishman  ;  his  name  was  Cromer  ; 
the  moment  he  heard  these  words  he  rose  up  at  the 
council  board  and  said :  What  blasphemy  is  this  I 
hear!  Ireland  will  never  change  her  faith.  Ireland 
never  will  renounce  her  Catholicity,  and  she  would 
have  to  do  it  by  renouncing  the  head  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  All  the  bishops  of  Ireland  followed  the 
Primate,  all  the  priests  of  Ireland  followed  the  Primate, 
and  George  Brown  wrote  a  most  lugubrious  letter 
home  to  his  protector,  Thomas  Cromwell,  telling 
him  that  he  could  make  nothing  of  this  people,  and 
no  doubt  he  would  have  returned  to  England,  only 
he  was  afraid  the  king  would  have  his  head  taken 
off.  Three  years  later,  however.  Brown  and  the 
Lord  Deputy  summoned  a  parliament ;  and  it  was  at 
this  parliament  of  1537,  according  to  Mr.  Froude,  that 
Ireland  threw  the  Pope  overboard.  Now,  what  are 
the  facts?  A  parliament  was  assembled.  From  time 
immemorial  in  Ireland,  whenever  the  parliament  was 
assembled  there  were  three  delegates  called  proctors, 
from  every  Catholic  diocese  in  Ireland,  who  sat  in  the 
House  of  Commons  by  virtue  of  their  office.  When  this 
parliament  was  called,  the  very  first  thing  that  they 
did  was  to  banish  the  three  proctors  who  came  from 
every  diocese  in  Ireland,  and  to  deprive  them  of  their 
seats   in   the  house.      Without   the  slightest  justice. 


78  Lecture  IL 

without  the  slightest  show  or  pretence  of  either  right 
or  law  or  justice,  the  proctors  were  excluded,  and  so 
the  ecclesiastical  element  of  Ireland,  the  Church  ele- 
ment, was  precluded  from  that  parliament  of  1537. 
Then,  partly  by  bribes  and  partly  by  threats,  the  venal  ^ 
parliament  of  the  Pale — the  English  Pale,  the  parlia- 
ment of  the  region  of  the  rotten  little  boroughs  that 
surrounded  Dublin  in  the  five  half  counties — declared 
themselves  willing  to  take  the  oath  that  Henry  VIII. 
was  the  head  of  the  Church ;  and  this  Mr.  Froude 
calls  the  apostasy  of  the  Irish  nation.  With  this 
strange  want  of  knowledge — for  I  can  call  it  nothing 
else — of  our  religion,  he  attests  that  Ireland  re- 
mained Catholic  even  though  he  asserts  that  she 
gave  up  the  Pope.  They  took  the  oath,  he  says, 
*^  bishops  and  all  took  the  oath  of  Henr>' VIII.'s  su- 
premacy, and  they  didn't  become  Protestants  ;  they  still 
remained  Catholics ;  and  the  reason  why  they  refused 
to  take  the  same  oath  to  Elizabeth,  was  that  Eliza- 
beth insisted  upon  the  Protestant  religion  as  well  as 
the  supremacy."  Now  I  answer  Mr.  Froude  at  once 
to  set  him  right  on  this  point.  The  Catholic  Church 
teaches,  and  has  always  taught,  that  no  man  is  a  Cath- 
olic who  is  not  in  the  communion  of  obedience  with 
the  Pope  of  Rome.  Henry  VIII.,  who  was  a  learned 
man,  had  too  much  logic  and  too  much  theology  and 
too  much  sense  to  become  what  is  called  a  Protestant. 
He  never  embraced  the  doctrines  of  Luther ;  and  he 
held  on  to  every  iota  of  the  Catholic  doctrine  to  the 
very  last  day  of  his  life,  save  and  except  that  he  re- 


Ireland  under  the  Tudors,  79 

fused  to  acknowledge  the  Pope ;  and  on  the  day 
that  Henry  VIII.  refused  to  acknowledge  the  Pope, 
Henry  VIII.  ceased  to  be  a  Catholic.  To  pretend, 
therefore,  or  to  hint  that  the  Irish  people  were  so 
igrorant  as  to  imagine  that  the  king  threw  the  Pope 
overboard  and  still  remained  a  Catholic,  is  to  offer 
to  the  genius  and  to  the  intelligence  of  Ireland  a 
gratuitous  insult.  It  is  true  that  some  five  of  the 
bishops  apostatized — I  can  call  it  nothing  else.  They 
took  the  oath  of  supremacy  to  Henry.  Their  names, 
living  in  the  execration  of  Irish  history,  were  Eugene 
Maginnis,  Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor ;  Roland 
Burke,  I  am  sorry  to  say.  Bishop  of  Clonfert ;  Flor- 
ence Gerawan,  Bishop  of  Clonmacnoise ;  Matthew 
Sanders,  Bishop  of  Leighlin,  and  Hugh  O'Cervallan, 
Bishop  of  Clanforth — five  bishops  apostatized.  TTie 
rest  of  Ireland's  episcopacy  remained  faithful.  George 
Brown,  the  apostate  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  acknowl- 
edged his  failure.  Of  all  the  priests  in  the  diocese  of 
Dublin,  he  could  only  persuade  three  to  take  the 
oath  to  Henry  VIII.  There  was  a  priest  down  in 
Cork ;  he  was  an  Irishman — a  rector  of  Shandon — and 
his  name  was  Dominick  Tirrey,  and  he  was  offered  the 
bishopric  of  Cork  if  he  took  the  oath,  and  he  took  it. 
There  was  a  man  named  William  Miagh,  another 
priest — he  was  offered  the  diocese  of  Kildare  if  he 
took  the  oath,  and  he  took  it.  There  was  a  man 
named  Alexander  Devereaux,  abbot  of  Dunbrody, 
a  Cistercian  monk — he  was  offered  the  diocese  of 
Ferns    in    the   County   Wexford,    and     he     took     it. 


8o  Lecture  IL 

These  are  all  the  names  that  represent  the  national 
apostasy  of  Ireland.  Eight  men ;  out  of  so  many 
hundred,  eight  were  frund  wanting;  and  Mr.  Froude 
turns  round  quietly  and  calmly,  and  tells  us  that 
the  Irish  bishops,  priests,  and  people  were  found 
wanting,  and  threw  the  Pope  overboard.  He  makes 
another  assertion,  and  I  regret  that  he  made  it ;  re- 
gret it  because  there  is  much  in  the  learned  gentleman 
that  I  admire  and  esteem.  He  asserts  that  the  bishops 
of  Ireland  in  those  days  were  immoral  men  ;  that  they 
had  families ;  that  they  were  not  at  all  like  the  vener- 
able men  whom  we  see  established  in  the  episcopacy 
to-day.  Now,  I  answer,  there  is  not  a  shred  of  testi- 
mony to  bear  out  Mn  Froude  in  this  wild  assertion. 
I  have  read  the  history  of  Ireland,  national,  civil,  and 
ecclesiastical,  as  far  as  I  could,  and  nowhere  have  I 
seen  even  an  allegation,  much  less  a  proof  of  immo- 
rality against  the  Irish  clergy  and  their  bishops  at 
the  time  of  the  Reformation.  But  perhaps  when  Mr. 
Froude  said  this  of  the  bishops  he  meant  the  apostate 
bishops ;  if  so,  I  am  willing  to  grant  him  whatever  he 
chooses  in  regard  to  them ;  and  whatever  charge  he 
lays  upon  them,  the  heavier  it  is  the  more  satisfied  I 
am  to  see  it  coming. 

The  next  passage  in  the  relations  of  Henry  VIII. 
to  Ireland  goes  to  prove  that  Ireland  did  not  throw 
the  Pope  overboard.  My  friends,  in  the  year  1541  a 
parliament  assembled  in  Dublin  and  declared  that 
Henry  VIII.  was  King  of  Ireland.  They  had  been 
four  hundred  years  and  more  fighting  for  that  title — 


Ireland  under  the  Tudor s.  8 1 

at  length  it  was  conferred  by  the  Irish  Parliament  upon 
the  English  monarch.     Two  years  later,  in  gratitude 
to    the    Irish    Parliament,     Henry  called     the    Irish 
chieftains    over   to   a   grand  assembly   at    Greenwich, 
and    on   the    first    of  July,    1543,    he   gave  the    Irish 
chieftains    their    English    titles.     O'Neill    of    Ulster 
was    made    Earl   of    Tyrone ;    the    glorious    O'Don- 
nell    Earl    of    Tyrconnell ;    Ulick    McWilliam  Burke 
was  called  the  Earl  of  Clanricarde ;    Fitzpatrick  was 
given  the  name  of  the    Baron  of  Ossory,  and  they 
returned  to    Ireland   with   their   new    English   titles. 
Henry,  free,  open-handed,  generous  fellow  as  he  was 
—  for    he    was    really   very   generous  —  gave    them 
not   only  titles,    but   he   gave   them   a   vast   amount 
of  property,  which  happened  to  be  stolen  from  tke 
Catholic  Church.      He  was  an    exceedingly  generous 
man  with  other  people's  goods.     He  had  a  good  deal 
of  that  spirit  of  which  Artemus  Ward  made  mention 
when  he  said  he  was  quite  content  to  see  his  wife's 
first  cousin  go  to  the  war.     In  order  to  promote  the 
Reformation — not  Protestantism,  but  his  own   Refor- 
mation in  Ireland — Henry   gave   to  these  Irish  earls 
with  their  English  titles,  all  the  abbey  lands,  all  the 
convents,  and  all   the  churches  that  lay  within  their 
possessions.      The     consequence     was     he    enriched 
them,  and  to  the  eternal  shame  of  the  O'Neill  and 
the   O'Donnell,    McWilliam    Burke,    and    Fitzpatrick 
of  Ossory,    they  had   the   cowardice   and  the  weak- 
ness  to   accept  the  gifts  at  his   hands.      Then  they 
came  home  with  the  spoils  of  the  monasteries  and 

4* 


82  Lecture  II. 

their  English  titles.  Now,  mark !  The  Irish  people 
were  as  true  as  steel  ou  that  day  when  the  Irish  chief- 
tains were  false  to  their  country.  Nowhere  in  the 
previous  history  of  Ireland  do  we  read  of  the  clans 
rising  against  their  chieftains ;  nowhere  do  we  read 
of  the  O'Neill  and  the  O'Donnell  being  despised  by 
their  own  people,  but  on  this  occasion,  when  they  came 
home,  mark  what  follows.  O'Brien,  Earl  of  Thomond, 
when  he  arrived  in  Munster,  found  half  of  his  domin- 
ions in  revolt  against  him.  The  Burkes  of  Connaught, 
as  soon  as  they  heard  that  McWilliam,  their  natural 
leader — the  earl — had  accepted  the  abbey  lands,  the 
very  first  thing  they  did  was  to  depose  him  and 
set  up  another  man,  not  by  the  title  of  the  Earl  of 
Clanricarde,  but  by  the  title  of  McWilliam  Ough- 
ter.  When  O'Neill,  Earl  of  Tyrone,  came  home  to 
Ulster,  he  was  taken  by  his  own  son,  clapped  into 
jail,  and  died  there. ^°  O'Donnell,  Earl  of  Tyrcon- 
nell,  came  home,  and  his  own  son  and  all  his  people 
rose  up  against  him  and  drove  him  out  of  the  midst 
of  them. 

Now,  I  say,  in  the  face  of  all  this,  Mr.  Froude 
is  not  justified  in  stating  that  Ireland  threw  the  Pope 
overboard,  for,  remember,  these  chieftains  did  not 
renounce  the  Catholic  religion — according  to  Mr. 
Froude  they  only  renounced  the  Papal  supremacy; 
they  did  not  become  Protestants,  they  only  became 
schismatics  and  ceased  to  be  Catholics,  and  Ireland 
would  not  stand  that. 

Henry  died  in   1547,  and  I  verily  believe  that,  with 


Ireland  under  the  Tudors.  83 

all  the  badness  of  his  heart,  if  he  had  lived  for  a  few 
years  longer  his  life  would  not  have  been  so  much 
a  curse  as  a  blessing  to  Ireland,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  those  who  came  after  him  were  worse  than  him- 
self. He  was  succeeded  by  his  child-son,  Edward  VI. 
Edward  was  under  the  care  of  the  Duke  of  Somerset. 
Somerset  was  a  thoroughgoing  Protestant,  and  did 
not  believe  in  the  Papal  supremacy,  in  the  Mass, 
in  the  sacraments — in  anything  that  formed  the  es- 
pecial teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church.  He  was  op- 
posed to  them  all,  and  he  sent  over  to  Ireland  his 
orders,  as  soon  as  Henry  was  dead  and  when  young 
Edward  was  proclaimed  king,  to  put  the  laws  in  force 
against  the  Catholics.  The  churches  were  pillaged, 
the  bishops  and  priests  driven  out,  and,  as  Mr.  Froude 
puts  it,  *^the  emblems  of  superstition  were  pulled 
down."  The  emblems  of  superstition,  as  Mr.  Froude 
calls  them,  were  the  figure  of  Christ  crucified,  the 
statues  of  His  Blessed  Mother,  and  the  statues  and 
pictures  of  His  saints.  All  these  things  were  pulled 
down  and  destroyed ;  the  crucifix  w^as  trampled  under 
foot,  and  the  ancient  statue  of  our  Lady  of  Trim  was 
publicly  burned.  The  churches  were  rifled  and 
sacked.  Then,  as  Mr.  Froude  elegantly  puts  it, 
^*  Ireland  was  taught  a  lesson  that  she  must  yield  to 
the  new  order  of  things  or  stand  by  the  Pope."  ''  And 
Irish  tradition,"  he  says,  ^*  and  ideas  became  insepara- 
bly linked  with  religion."  Perfectly  true,  Mr.  Froude  ! 
He  goes  on  to  say,  in  eloquent  language,  *^  Ireland 
chose  its  place  on  the  Pope's  side,  and  chose  it  irrevo- 


84  Lecture  II. 

cably,  and  from  that  time  the  cause  of  the  Catholic 
religion  and  Irish  independence  became  inseparably 
one."  (Great  applause.)  If  the  learned  gentleman  were 
present  I  have  no  doubt  he  would  rise  up  and  bow  his 
thanks  to  you  for  the  hearty  manner  in  which  you  have 
received  his  sentiments.  I  am  sure,  as  he  is  not  here,  he 
will  not  take  it  ill  of  me  when  I  thank  you  in  his  name. 

Edward  died  after  a  short  reign,  and  then  came 
Queen  Mary,  who  is  known  in  England  by  the  title 
of  "  Bloody  Mary."  She  was  a  Catholic,  and  without 
doubt  she  persecuted  her  Protestant  subjects.  But 
Mr.  Froude  makes  this  remark  in  his  lecture. 
He  says,  ''  There  was  no  persecution  of  Protest- 
ants in  Ireland,  because  there  were  no  Protestants 
there  to  be  persecuted."  He  goes  on  to  say,  "those 
who  were  in  the  land  fled  when  Mary  came  to  the 
throne." 

Now,  my  friends,  I  must  take  the  learned  historian 
to  task  in  this.  The  insinuation  is  that  if  any  Prot- 
estants had  been  in  Ireland  the  Irish  Catholic  peo- 
ple would  have  persecuted  them.  The  impression 
that  he  tries  to  leave  on  the  mind  is  that  we  Cath- 
olics are  only  too  glad  to  imbrue  our  hands  in  the 
blood  of  our  fellow-citizens  on  the  question  of  re- 
ligious differences  and  of  doctrine.  And  he  goes 
on  to  confirm  this  impression  by  saying,  "  the  Prot- 
estants who  were  in  Ireland  fled."  As  much  as  to 
say,  whatever  chance  they  had  in  England,  they  had 
no  chance  in  Ireland. 

Now,  what  are  the  historic  facts?      The  facts  are 


Ireland  under  the  Tudor s.  85 

that  during  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  and  during  the 
later  years  of  his  father*s  reign,  certain  apostates  from 
the  Catholic  faith  were  sent  over  to  Ireland  as  bishops 
— men  whom  even  English  history  convicts  and  con- 
demns of  every  crime.  As  soon  as  Mary  came  to  the 
throne  these  gentlemen  did  not  wait  to  be  ordered  out 
— they  went  out  of  their  own  accord.  It  was  not  a 
question  at  all  of  the  Irish  people — it  was  a  question 
between  the  Catholic  Queen  of  England  and  certain 
English  bishops  foisted  upon  the  Irish  Church.  They 
thought  it  was  the  best  of  their  play  to  clear  out,  and 
I  verily  believe  they  acted  very  prudently. 

But,  as  far  as  regards  the  Irish  people,  I  claim  for 
my  native  land  that  they  never  persecuted  on  account 
of  religion.  I  am  proud  in  addressing  an  American 
audience  to  be  able  to  lay  this  high  claim  for  Ireland 
— that  the  genius  of  the  Irish  people  is  not  a  persecut- 
ing genius.  There  is  not  a  people  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  so  attached  to  the  Catholic  religion  as  the  Irish 
race.  But  there  is  not  a  people  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  so  unwilling  to  persecute  or  to  shed  blood  in  the 
cause  of  religion  as  the  Irish.  And  here  are  my 
proofs.  Mr.  Froude  says  that  the  Protestants  made 
off  out  of  Ireland  as  soon  as  Mary  came  to  the  throne. 
But  Sir  James  Ware,  in  his  annals,  tells  us,  that  the 
Protestants  were  being  persecuted  in  England  under 
Mary,  and  actually  fled  over  to  Ireland  for  protection. 
He  gives  even  the  names  of  some  of  them.  He  tells 
us  that  John  Harvey,  Abel  Ellis,  John  Edmunds,  and 
Henry  Haugh,  all  natives  of  Cheshire,  came  over  to 


86  Lecture  II. 

Ireland  to  avoid  the  persecution  in  England.  They 
brought  a  Welsh  Protestant  minister  named  Thomas 
Jones  with  them.  Nay,  more,  these  four  gentle- 
men were  received  so  cordially,  and  were  welcomed 
so  hospitably,  that  they  actually  founded  highly  re-  ' 
spectable  mercantile  houses  in  Dublin.  We  have  an- 
other magnificent  proof  that  the  Irish  people  are  not 
a  persecuting  race.  When  James  II.  assembled  his 
Catholic  Parliament  in  Ireland,  in  1689,  the  Catholics 
had  been  more  than  a  hundred  years  under  the  lash 
of  their  Protestant  fellow-citizens,  robbed,  plundered, 
imprisoned,  and  put  to  death  for  their  conscientious 
adherence  to  the  Catholic  faith.  At  last  the  wheel 
got  turned,  and  in  1689  ^^^  Catholics  were  up  and  the 
Protestants  were  down.  That  parliament  assembled 
to  the  number  of  two  hundred  and  twenty-eight  mem- 
bers. The  Celt,  the  Irish  Catholic  element,  was  in  a 
sweeping  majority.  What  was  the  first  law  they 
made  ?  The  very  first  law  that  that  Catholic  Par- 
liament passed  was  as  follows :  '^  We  hereby  decree 
that  it  is  the  law  of  this  land  of  Ireland  that  neither 
now  or  ever  again  shall  any  man  be  persecuted  for  his 
religion.**  This  was  the  retaliation  they  took  on  them. 
Was  it  not  magnificent?  Was  it  not  a  grand  specimen 
of  that  spirit  of  Christianity,  that  spirit  of  forgiveness 
and  charity,  without  which,  all  the  dogmatic  truths  that 
were  ever  revealed  won't  save  or  ennoble  the  Christian 
man?" 

And  now,  coming  to  good   Queen   Bess,  as  she  is 
called,  Mr.  Froude  lays  it  on   her  very   heavy.     He 


Ireland  under  the  Tudors,  87 

speaks  of  her  rule  in  language  as  terrific  in  its  severity 
as  I  could,  and  far  more,  for  I  have  not  the  learning  or 
the  eloquence  of  Mr.  Froude.  But  he  says  one  little 
thing  of  her  worthy  of  remark.  He  says  Elizabeth 
was  reluctant  to  draw  the  sword ;  but  when  she  drew 
it  she  never  sheathed  it  until  the  star  of  freedom  was 
fixed  upon  her  banner,  never  to  pale.  This  is  a  very 
eloquent  passage.  But  the  soul  of  eloquence  is  truth. 
Is  it  true,  historically,  that  Elizabeth  was  reluctant  to 
draw  the  sword  ?  Answer  it,  ye  Irish  annals ;  answer 
it,  history  of  Ireland.  Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne  in 
1558.  The  following  year,  1559,  there  was  a  parlia- 
ment assembled  by  her  order  in  Dublin.  What  do  you 
think  were  the  laws  that  were  made  by  that  parliament  ? 
It  was  not  a  Catholic  Parliament,  but  an  Anglo-Irish  and 
Protestant  Parliament.  It  consisted  of  seventy-six  gen- 
tlemen. Generally  speaking,  the  parliaments  in  Ireland 
used  to  have  from  two  hundred  and  twenty  to  two  hun- 
dred and  thirty  members.  This  parliament  of  Elizabeth 
consisted  of  seventy-six  picked  men.  The  laws  that 
that  parliament  made  were,  first,  "-  Any  clergyman  not 
using  the  *  Book  of  Common  Prayer' — the  Protestant 
prayer-book — or  using  any  other  form  of  prayer,  either 
in  public  or  private,  the  first  time  he  is  discovered,  he 
is  to  be  deprived  of  his  benefice  for  one  year  and  suffer 
imprisonment  in  jail  for  six  months.  For  a  second 
offence  he  is  to  forfeit  his  income  forever,  and  to  be 
put  into  jail,  to  be  let  out  only  at  the  queen's  good 
pleasure,  whenever  she  thought  proper.  For  the  third 
offence  he  was  to  be  put  in  close  confinement  for  life." 


88  Lecture  11. 

This  is  the  lady  that  was  reluctant  to  draw  the  sword, 
my  friends.  Remember,  this  was  the  very  year  after 
she  was  crowned  queen.  She  scarcely  waited  a  year, 
and  yet  this  was  the  woman  that  was  reluctant  to  draw 
the  sword. 

So  much  for  the  priests,  now  for  the  laymen.  *'  If 
any  layman  was  discovered  using-another  prayer-book 
except  Elizabeth's  prayer-book — he  was  sent  into  jail 
for  a  year,  and  if  caught  doing  this  a  second  time,  he 
was  put  into  prison  for  the  rest  of  his  life."  Every 
Sunday  the  people  were  obliged  to  go  to  the  Protest- 
ant church.  If  any  one  refused  to  go — for  every  time  he 
refused  he  was  fined  twelve  pence.  That  would  be  about 
twelve  shillings  of  our  present  money.  And  besides  the 
fine  of  twelve  pence,  he  was  to  incur  the  censure  of  the 
Church,  whatever  that  meant.  *^  The  star  of  freedom," 
says  Mr.  Froude,  **  was  never  to  pale,  and  the  queen 
drew  the  sword  in  the  cause  of  that  star."  But,  my 
friends,  freedom  meant  whatever  fitted  in  Elizabeth's 
mind  ;  freedom  meant  for  our  fathers  a  slavery,  tenfold 
increased  by  the  addition  of  persecution  of  the  unfor- 
tunate Irish.  If  this  be  Mr.  Froude's  idea  of  the  star 
of  freedom,  all  I  can  say  is  the  sooner  such  a  star 
falls  from  the  firmament  of  Heaven,  and  the  world's 
history,  the  better. 

In  what  state  was  the  Irish  Church?  We  have  the 
authority  of  the  Protestant  historian,  Leland,  that 
there  were  two  hundred  and  twenty  parish  churches 
in  Meath,  and  in  a  few  years'  time  there  were  only  one 
hundred  and  five  of  them  left  with  the  roofs  on.     *'A11 


Ireland  under  the  Tudors,  89 

over  the  kingdom/*  says  Leland,  **  the  people  were 
left  without  any  religious  worship,  and  under  the  pre- 
text of  obeying  the  orders  of  the  State,  they  seized  all 
the  most  valuable  furniture  of  the  churches,  which 
they  exposed  for  sale,  without  decency  or  reserve/'  A 
number  of  hungry  adventurers  were  let  loose  upon  the 
Irish  Church  and  Irish  people  by  Elizabeth.  They 
not  only  robbed  them,  but  plundered  their  churches, 
and  shed  the  blood  of  the  bishops,  priests,  and  people 
of  Ireland  in  torrents,  as  Mr.  Froude  himself  acknowl- 
edges. He  tells  us  **that  in  the  second  rebellion 
of  the  Geraldines,  such  was  the  state  to  which  the 
fair  province  of  Munster  was  reduced,  that  you  might 
go  through  the  land,  from  the  furthermost  point  of 
Kerry  until  you  came  into  the  eastern  plains  of  Tip- 
perary,  and  you  would  not  even  hear  as  much  as  the 
whistle  of  the  ploughboy,  or  behold  the  face  of  a  liv- 
ing man.  And  that  the  trenches  and  ditches  were 
full  of  the  corpses  of  the  people  ;  "  that  ''  the  country 
was  reduced  to  a  howling,  desolate  wilderness."  The 
poet  Spenser  describes  it  in  the  most  terrific  and 
graphic  style ;  and  even  he,  case-hardened  as  he  was, 
— being  one  of  the  plunderers  and  persecutors  himself 
—  acknowledges  that  the  state  of  Munster  was 
such  that  no  man  could  look  upon  it  with  a  dry  eye. 
Sir  Henry  Sydney,  one  of  Elizabeth's  own  deputies, 
speaks  of  the  Irish  Church.  *'  So  deformed,"  he  says, 
**and  overthrown  a  church,  there  is  not,  I  am  sure,  in 
any  region  where  the  name  of  Christ  is  professed,  such 
horrible  spectacles  to  behold,  as  the  burning  of  vil- 


90  Lecture  IL 

lages,  the  ruin  of  churches — yea,  the  view  of  the  bones 
and  skulls  of  the  dead,  who,  partly  by  murder,  partly 
by  famine,  have  died  in  the  fields,  as  in  troth  hardly 
any  Christian  with  dry  eyes  can  behold."  There  is 
the  testimony  of  the  state  to  which  this  terrible  woman 
had  reduced  unhappy  Ireland.  Stafford,  another  En- 
glish authority  and  statesman,  says,  **  I  knew  it  was 
bad,  very  bad,  in  Ireland  ;  but  that  it  was  so  stark 
nought  I  did  not  believe." 

And  in  the  midst  of  all  this  persecution  there  was 
still  a  reigning  idea  in  the  mind  of  the  English  gov- 
ernment ;  it  was  still  the  old  idea  of  rooting  out  and 
extirpating  the  Irish  from  their  own  land,  to  which 
was  added  the  element  of  religious  discord  and  perse- 
cution. It  is  evident  that  this  was  still  in  the  mind  of 
the  English  people.  Elizabeth,  who,  Mr.  Froude  says, 
"  never  dispossessed  an  Irishman  of  an  acre  of  his 
land,"  Elizabeth,  during  the  terrible  war  which  she 
had  waged  in  the  latter  days  of  her  reign  against  he- 
roic Hugh  O'Neill  in  Ulster,  threw  out  such  hints  as 
these,  ^'  The  more  slaughter  there  is,  the  better  it  will 
be  for  my  English  subjects  ;  the  more  land  they  will 
get."  This  woman,  who,  Mr.  Froude  tells  us,  **  Never 
confiscated,  and  would  never  listen  to  the  idea  of  the 
confiscation  of  property  ;  "  this  woman,  when  theGer- 
aldines  were  destroyed,  took  the  whole  of  the  vast  es- 
tates of  the  Earl  of  Desmond,  and  gave  them  all 
quietly  and  calmly  to  certain  Englishmen  from  Lanca- 
shire, Devonshire,  Somersetshire,  and  Cheshire  ;  and  in 
the  face  of  these  truths,  recorded  and  stamped  on  the 


Ireland  under  the  Tudor s,  91 

world's  history,  I  cannot  understand  how  any  man  can 
come  in  and  say  of  this  atrocious  woman,  ^^  Whatever 
she  did,  she  intended  for  the  good  of  Ireland."  The 
annals  of  my  own  order  record  that  there  were  six 
hundred  Dominican  Friars  in  Ireland  in  her  time. 
*^  There  are  said  to  have  been  but  four  Fathers  of  the 
Order  of  St.  Dominick  left  remaining  at  the  time  of 
Elizabeth's  death,"  says  Mr.  McGee,  in  his  history  of 
Ireland.  Five  of  our  bishops  received  at  her  hands 
the  crown  of  martyrdom  ;  yet,  during  the  half  century 
of  blood  that  marks  her  reign,  we  do  not  read  of  one 
single  apostate  among  the  bishops,  and  but  half-a- 
dozen  at  most  from  all  the  orders  of  the  clergy. 

In  1602  she  died,  after  reigning  forty-one  years, 
leaving  Ireland,  at  the  hour  of  her  death,  one  vast 
slaughter-house.  Munster  was  reduced  to  the  state  in 
which  Spenser  described  it.  Connaught  was  reduced 
to  a  wilderness  through  the  rebellion  of  the  Clanri- 
cardes,  of  the  Burke  family.  Ulster,  through  the 
agency  of  Lord  Mountjoy,  was  left  the  very  picture  of 
desolation.  The  glorious  Red  Hugh  O'Donnell,  and 
the  magnificent  Hugh  O'Neill  were  crushed  and  de- 
feated after  fifteen  years'  war ;  and  the  consequence 
was  that  when  James  I.  succeeded  Elizabeth,  he  found 
Ireland  almost  a  wilderness.  What  did  he  do  ?  He 
quietly,  at  first,  promised  the  Irish  that  they  should 
keep  their  lands.  He  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  Eng- 
land in  1603,  and  for  four  years — I  must  give  him  the 
credit — for  four  years  he  kept  his  word.  In  1607, 
through  a  sham  conspiracy,  Hugh  O'Neill  and  O'Don- 


92  Lecture  II. 

nell  of  Tyrconnel  fled  from  the  country,  and  then  Sir 
Arthur  Chichester,  the  agent  of  the  English  king,  de- 
veloped one  of  the  most  extraordinary  schemes  that 
was  ever  heard  of  in  the  relations  between  one  country 
and  another.  They  took  the  whole  of  the  province* 
of  Ulster,  every  square  foot  of  Ireland's  richest  and 
finest  province,  and  cleared  out  the  whole  Irish  popu- 
lation and  handed  it  over  bodily  to  settlers  from  Eng- 
land and  Scotland.  It  was  called  the  *'  Plantation  of 
Ulster.'*  They  gave  to  the  Protestant  Archbishop  of 
Armagh  43,000  acres  of  the  finest  land  in  Ireland; 
they  gave  to  Trinity  College  in  Dublin,  30,000  acres  ; 
they  gave  to  the  skinners,  dry-salters  and  cordwainers, 
corporations  and  trades  of  London,  208,000  acres ; 
they  brought  over  colonies  of  Scotch  Presbyterians 
and  English  Protestants  and  gave  them  lots  of  1,000, 
1,500  and  2,000  acres  of  land  in  extent,  making  them 
swear  as  a  condition  that  they  would  not  as  much  as 
employ  one  single  Irish  Catholic,  or  let  them  come 
near  them.  Thus  millions  of  acres  of  the  finest  land 
in  Ireland  were  taken  at  one  blow  from  the  Irish  peo- 
ple, and  they  were  thrust  out  of  all  their  property. 

Mr.  Froude  in  his  rapid  historical  sketch  says: 
'^  But  all  this,  of  course,  bred  revenge."  He  tells  us 
*^  in  1641  the  Irish  rose  in  rebellion."  They  did.  Now 
he  makes  one  statement,  and  with  the  refutation  of 
that  statement  I  close  this  lecture. 

I  know,  my  friends,  to  many  among  you  these  lec- 
tures must  appear  dry  ;  we  cannot  help  it ;  history 
generally  is  a  dry  subject..    Mr.  Froude  tells  us  that  in 


Ireland  under  the  Tudors,  93 

the  rising  under  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill  in  1642,  there  were 
38,000  Protestants  murdered  by  the  Irish.  Now,  that 
is  a  grave  charge  ;  that  is  one  of  the  most  terrific 
things  to  accuse  a  people  of,  if  it  be  not  true.  If  it  be 
true,  all  I  can  say  is  that  I  blush  for  my  fathers.  But 
if  it  be  not  true,  why  repeat  it  ?  why  not,  in  the  name 
of  God,  wipe  it  out  with  disdain  from  the  record  of  his- 
tory ?  Is  it  true  ?  The  Irish  rose  under  Sir  Phelim 
O'Neill  ;  and,  at  that  time,  there  was  a  Protestant  par- 
son in  Ireland  calling  himself  "  a  minister  of  the  Word 
of  God."  He  gave  his  account  of  the  whole  transac- 
tion in  a  letter  to  the  people  of  England,  begging  of 
them  to  help  their  fellow-Protestants  in  Ireland.  Here 
are  his  words  :  ^*  It  was  the  intention  of  the  Irish  to 
massacre  all  the  English.  On  Saturday  they  were  to 
disarm  them,  on  Sunday  to  seize  all  their  cattle  and 
goods,  and  on  Monday  they  were  to  cut  all  the  English 
throats.  The  former  they  executed,  the  third  one  " — 
massacre — ^'  they  failed  in."  Petty,  an  English  au- 
thority, tells  us  that  there  were  30,000  Protestants 
massacred  at  that  time.  A  man  by  the  name  of  May, 
another  historian,  puts  it  at  200,000  ;  he  thought,  ^^  in 
for  a  penny,  in  for  a  pound."  But  there  was  one  hon- 
est Protestant  clergyman  in  Ireland  who  examined 
minutely  the  details  of  the  whole  conspiracy  and  all 
the  evils  that  came  from  it.  What  does  he  say  ?  **  I 
have  discovered,"  he  says — and  gives  as  proof  state 
papers  and  authentic  records — *^  that  the  Irish  Catho- 
lics in  that  rising  massacred  2,100  Protestants;  that 
other  Protestants  said  that  there  were  1,600  more,  and 


94  Lecture  IL 

that  some  Irish  authorities  themselves  say  that  there 
were  300  more,  making  altogether  4,000  persons."  This 
is  the  massacre  that  Mr.  Froude  says — he  just  tosses 
it  off  as  calmly  as  if  it  were  Gospel — **  38,000  Protest- 
ants were  massacred,''  that  is  to  say,  he  has  multiplied 
the  original  number  by  10 ;  whereas,  Mr.  Warner,  the 
authority  in  question,  actually  says,  "  That  there  were 
2,100,"  ^*  and,"  he  continues,  *^  I  am  not  willing  to  be- 
lieve in  the  additional  numbers  that  have  been  sent 
in."  This  is  the  way  that  history  is  written ;  this  is 
the  way  that  people  are  left  under  false  impressions. 

Now,  from  all  we  have  seen  of  the  terrible  nature  of 
the  evils  which  fell  upon  Ireland  in  the  days  of  Henry 
VIII. ;  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  ;  in  the  days  of  James 
I.,  I  ask  you,  people  of  America,  to  set  these  two 
thoughts  before  your  mind,  contrast  them,  and  give 
me  a  fair  verdict. 

Is  there  anything  recorded  in  history  more  terrible 
than  the  persistent,  undying  resolution  so  clearly 
manifested  by  the  English  government,  to  root  out, 
extirpate,  and  destroy  the  people  of  Ireland  ?  Is 
there  anything  recorded  in  history  more  unjust  than 
the  systematic  constitutional  robbery  of  a  people 
whom  the  Almighty  God  created  in  that  island,  to 
whom  he  gave  that  island,  who  had  the  aboriginal 
right  to  every  inch  of  Irish  soil  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  can  history  bring  forth  a  more 
magnificent  spectacle  than  the  calm,  firm,  united  reso- 
lution with  which  Ireland  stood  in  defense  of  her  relig- 
ion, and  gave  up  all  things  rather  than  sacrifice  what 


Ireland  under  the  Tudor s,  95 

she  conceived  to  be  the  cause  of  truth?  Mr.  Froude 
does  not  believe  that  it  was  the  cause  of  truth.  I  do 
not  blame  him.  Every  man  has  a  right  to  his  relig- 
ious opinions.  But  Ireland  believed  it  was  the  cause 
of  truth,  and  Ireland  stood  for  it  like  one  man. 

I  speak  of  all  these  things  only  historically.  I  do 
not  believe  in  animosity.  I  am  not  a  believer  in  bad 
blood.  I  do  not  believe  with  Mr.  Froude  that  the 
question  of  Ireland's  difficulties  must  ever  remain 
without  a  solution.  I  do  not  give  it  up  in  despair ; 
but  this  I  do  say,  that  he  has  no  right,  nor  has  any 
other  man,  to  come  before  an  audience  of  America — of 
America,  that  has  never  persecuted  in  the  cause  of  re- 
ligion ;  of  America,  that  respects  the  rights  even  of  the 
meanest  citizen  upon  her  imperial  soil ;  and  to  ask 
that  American  people  to  sanction  by  their  verdict  the 
robbery  and  the  persecution  of  which  England  was 
guilty. 


LECTURE  III. 
IRELAND  UNDER  CROMWELL. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  We  now  approach,  in 
answering  Mr.  Froude,  to  some  of  the  most  awful 
periods  of  our  history ;  and  I  confess  that  I  approach 
this  terrific  ground  with  sadness,  and  that  I  extremely 
regret  that  Mr.  Froude  should  have  opened  up  ques- 
tions which  oblige  any  Irishman  to  undergo  the 
pain  of  heart  and  the  anguish  of  spirit  which  the 
revision  of  this  portion  of  our  history  must  occasion. 
The  learned  gentleman  began  his  third  lecture  by 
reminding  his  audience  that  he  had  closed  his  second 
with  a  reference  to  the  rise,  the  progress,  and  the  col- 
lapse of  the  great  rebellion,  which  took  place  in  Ire- 
land in  the  year  1641,  that  is  to  say,  somewhat  more 
than  two  hundred  years  ago.  He  made  but  a  passing 
allusion  to  that  great  event  in  our  history,  and  that 
allusion,  if  he  be  reported  correctly,  stated  simply  that 
the  Irish  rebelled  in  1641.  This  is  his  first  statement 
— that  it  was  a  rebellion  ;  secondly,  that  this  rebellion 


Ireland  under  Cromwell.  97 

**  began  in  massacre  and  ended  in  ruin  ;  "  thirdly,  that 
for  nine  years  the  Irish  leaders  had  the  destinies  of 
their  country  in  their  own  hands  ;  and,  fourthly,  that 
these  nine  years  were  years  of  anarchy  and  slaughter. 
Nothing,  therefore,  can  be  more  melancholy  than  the 
picture  drawn  by  this  learned  gentleman  of  these  nine 
years !  and  yet  I  will  venture  to  say,  and  I  hope  I 
shall  be  able  to  prove,  that  each  of  these  four  state- 
ments is  without  sufficient  historical  foundation.  My 
first  position  is  that  the  movement  of  1641  was  not  a 
rebellion  ;  secondly,  that  it  did  not  begin  in  massacre, 
although  it  ended  in  ruin  ;  thirdly,  that  the  Irish  lead- 
ers had  not  the  destiny  of  their  country  in  their  hands 
during  these  years  ;  and,  fourthly,  whether  they  had 
or  not,  that  these  years  were  not  a  period  of  anarchy 
or  of  mutual  slaughter.  They  were  at  the  opening  of 
a  far  more  terrific  period.  We  must  discuss  these 
questions,  my  friends,  calmly  and  historically.  We 
must  look  upon  them  rather  like  the  antiquarian  prying 
into  the  past,  than  with  the  living,  warm  feelings  of 
men  whose  blood  boils  up  with  the  remembrance  of 
so  much  injustice  and  so  much  bloodshed.  In  order 
to  understand  this  question  fully  and  fairly,  it  is  neces- 
sary for  us  to  go  back  to  the  historical  events  of  the 
times.  I  find,  then,  that  James  I.,  the  man  who 
**  planted  '*  Ulster — that  is  to  say,  who  confiscated, 
utterly  and  entirely,  six  of  the  fairest  counties  in 
Ireland — an  entire  province  —  rooting  out  the  abo- 
riginal Irish  Catholic  inhabitants,  even  to  a  man, 
and   giving   the  whole  country  to  Scotch  and   Eng- 


98  Lecture  III. 

lish  settlers  of  the  Protestant  religion,  under  the 
condition  that  they  were  not  to  have  even  as  much 
as  an  Irish  laborer  on  their  grounds,  but  that  they 
were  to  banish  them  away, — that  this  man  died  in 
1625,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  unfortunate  son, 
Charles  I.  When  Charles  came  to  the  throne,  bred  up 
as  he  was  in  the  traditions  of  a  monarchy  which  Henry 
VIII.  had  rendered  almost  absolute,  as  we  know; 
whose  absolute  power  was  still  continued  by  Elizabeth 
under  forms  the  most  tyrannical ;  whose  absolute 
power  was  continued  by  his  own  father,  James 
L,  he  brought  with  him  the  most  exaggerated  ideas 
of  royal  privileges  and  royal  supremacy.  But  during 
the  days  of  his  father,  a  new  spirit  had  grown  up  in 
England  and  in  Scotland.  The  form  which  Protest- 
antism took  in  Scotland  was  the  hard,  uncompromis- 
ing, and,  I  will  add,  cruel  form  of  Calvinism  in  its 
most  repellent  aspect.  The  men  who  rose  in  Scotland 
in  defense  of  their  Presbyterian  religion,  rose,  not 
against  Catholics  at  all,  but  against  the  Episcopalian- 
Protestants  of  England.  They  defended  what  they 
called  their  Kirk,  or  covenant ;  they  fought  bravely,  I 
acknowledge,  for  it ;  and  they  ended  by  establishing  it 
as  the  religion  of  Scotland.  Now,  Charles  I.  was  an 
Episcopalian-Protestant  of  the  most  sincere  and  de- 
voted kind.  The  Parliament  of  England,  in  the  very 
first  year  of  Charles,  admitted  members  who  were 
very  strongly  tinged  with  Scotch  Calvinism,  and  they 
at  once  showed  a  refractory  spirit  to  their  king.  He 
demanded  of  them  certain  subsidies,  and  they  refused 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  99 

him  ;  he  asserted  certain  sovereign  rights,  and  they 
denied  them.  But  whilst  all  this  was  going  on  in 
England,  from  the  year  1630  to  the  year,  let  us  say, 
1641,  what  was  taking  place  in  Ireland  ?  One  province 
of  the  land  had  been  completely  confiscated  by 
James  I.  Charles  was  in  want  of  money  for  his  own 
purposes,  and  his  parliament  refused  to  grant  him  any ; 
and  the  poor,  oppressed,  down-trodden  Catholics  of 
Ireland  imagined,  naturally  enough,  that,  the  king  be- 
ing in  difficulties,  he  would  turn  to  them  and  perhaps 
lend  them  a  little  countenance,  a  little  favor,  if  they 
proclaimed  their  loyalty  and  stood  by  him.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  Lord 
Falkland,  sincerely  attached  as  he  was  to  his  roy- 
al master — hinted  to  the  Catholics,  and  proposed 
to  them  that,  as  they  were  under  the  most  terrific 
penal  laws  from  the  days  of  Elizabeth  and  of  James 
I.,  if  they  should  now  petition  the  king,  they  might 
get  certain  graces  or  concessions  granted  to  them. 
What  were  these  graces  ?  They  simply  involved 
permission  to  live  in  their  own  land,  and  permission  to 
worship  their  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their 
own  consciences.  They  asked  for  nothing  more — no- 
thing more  was  promised  to  them.  When  their  peti- 
tion went  before  the  king,  his  royal  majesty  of  England 
issued  a  proclamation  in  which  he  declared  that  it  was 
his  intention  and  that  he  had  pledged  his  word  to 
grant  to  the  Catholics  and  to  the  people  of  Ireland 
certain  concessions  or  indulgences  which  he  called  by 
the  name  of  ''graces.''     No  sooner,  however,  did  the 


100  Lecture  III, 

newly-founded  Puritan  element  in  England,  and  the 
parliament,  that  was  fighting  rebelliously  against  their 
king,  hear  that  the  slightest  relaxation  of  the  penal 
law  was  to  be  granted  to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  than 
they  instantly  rose  and  protested  that  it  should  not  be. 
Charles,  to  his  eternal  disgrace,  broke  his  word  with 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland  after  they  had  sent  him 
£  1 20,000  in  acknowledgment  of  his  bounty.  More  than 
this.  It  was  suspected  that  Lord  Falkland  was  too 
mild  a  man,  too  just  a  man  to  be  allowed  to  remain  as 
Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  and  he  was  recalled,  and, 
after  a  short  lapse,  Wentworth,  who  was  afterwards 
Earl  of  Strafford,  w^as  sent  to  Ireland  as  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant. Wentworth,  on  his  arrival,  summoned  a  par- 
liament and  they  met  in  the  year  1634.  He  told  them 
the  difficulties  the  king  was  in ;  he  told  them  how  his 
parliament  in  England  was  rebelling  against  him,  and 
how  he  looked  to  his  Irish  subjects  as  loyal ;  and  per- 
haps he  told  them  that  amongst  Catholics  loyalty  is 
not  a  mere  sentiment,  but  it  is  an  unshaken  principle, 
resting  on  conscience  and  assured  through  the  church. 
And  then  he  assured  them  that  Charles,  the  King  of 
England,  still  intended  to  keep  his  word,  and  to  grant 
them  their  concessions  or  their  graces.  Next  came  the 
usual  demand  for  money,  and  the  Irish  Parliament 
granted  six  subsidies  of  ^50,000  each.  Strafford  wrote 
to  the  King  of  England  congratulating  him  on  having 
got  so  much  money  out  of  the  Irish,  and  confessing 
that  he  had  only  expected  subsidies  of  ;£'30,ooo,  whilst 
they  granted  subsidies  of  ;^50,ooo.     The   parliament 


Ireland  under  CromzvelL  lOi 

met  the  following  year,  in  1635,  and  what  do  you  think 
was  the  fulfillment  of  the  royal  promise  to  the  Catho- 
lics of  Ireland  ?  Strafford  had  got  the  money.  He 
did  not  wish  to  compromise  his  master,  the  king,  so 
he  took  it  upon  himself,  and  fixed  upon  his  memory 
the  indelible  shame  and  disgrace  of  breaking  the  word 
which  he  had  pledged,  and  disappointing  the  Catholics 
of  Ireland.  Then,  in  1635,  the  following  year,  the  real 
character  of  this  man  came  out,  and  what  do  you  think 
was  the  measure  that  he  proposed  ?  He  instituted  a 
commission  with  the  express  purpose  of  confiscating,  in 
addition  to  Ulster — that  was  already  gone — the  whole 
province  of  Connaught,  so  as  not  to  leave  an  Irishman 
or  a  Catholic  one  single  inch  of  ground  in  that  land. 
This  he  called  '^  The  Commission  of  Defective  Titles.'* 
They  were  commissioned  to  inquire  into  the  title  every 
man  had  to  his  property,  and  to  inquire  into  it  with 
the  express  and  avowed  purpose  of  finding  a  flaw  in  it, 
so  that  they  could  confiscate  it  to  the  crown  of  Eng- 
land. Now,  remember  how  much  was  gone  already, 
my  friends  :  the  whole  of  Ulster  was  confiscated  by 
James  I. ;  the  same  king  had  taken  Longford  from 
the  O'Farrells,  who  owned  it  from  time  immemorial ; 
had  seized  upon  Wicklow  and  taken  it  from  the 
O'Tooles  and  O'Byrnes  ;  had  taken  the  northern  part 
of  the  county  Wexford  from  the  O'Cavanaghs,  and 
Kings  county  from  the  O'Malloys.  Now,  with  the 
whole  of  Ulster,  and  the  better  part  of  Leinster,  in 
his  hands,  this  minister  of  Charles  comes  in  and  insti- 
tutes a  commission,  by  which  he  was  to  obtain  the 


I02  Lecture  III, 

whole  of  the  province  of  Connaught,  root  out  the  na- 
tive Irish  population,  expel  every  man  who  owned  a 
rood  of  land  in  the  province,  and  reduce  them  to  beg- 
gary, starvation,  and  death.  Here  is  a  description  of  his 
plan  as  given  by  Leland,  a  historian  who  is  hostile  to 
Ireland*s  faith,  and  to  Ireland*s  nationality.  Leland 
thus  describes  the  business:  **  His  project,"  he  says, 
"  was  nothing  less  than  to  subvert  the  title  of  every 
estate  in  every  part  of  Connaught ;  a  project  which, 
when  first  proposed  in  the  late  reign,  was  received 
with  horror  and  amazement,  but  which  suited  the  un- 
dismayed and  enterprising  genius  of  Lord  Wentworth." 
Accordingly,  he  began  in  the  county  of  Roscommon, 
he  passed  from  Roscommon  to  Sligo,  then  to  Mayo, 
and  then  to  Galway.  The  only  way  in  which  b.  title  could 
be  upset  was  by  having  a  jury  of  twelve  men  to  agree 
to  .their  verdict  as  to  whether  the  title  was  valid  or  not. 
Strafford  began  by  picking  his  jury  and  packing  them. 
The  old  story  over  again.  The  old  policy  which  has 
been  followed  down  to  our  own  time,  the  policy  of  pack- 
ing a  perjured  jury.  He  succeeded.  He  told  the  jury 
before  the  trials  began  that  he  expected  them  to  find 
a  verdict  for  the  king,  and  between  bribing  and  threat- 
ening them  he  got  juries  that  found  for  him  until  he 
came  into  my  own  county  of  Galway.  For  the  honor 
of  old  Galway  be  it  said  that  as  soon  as  this  com- 
mission arrived  in  that  county  they  could  not  find 
twelve  jurors  in  the  county  Galway  to  pass  a  verdict 
to  confiscate  the  property  of  their  fellow-citizens. 
What  was  the  result  ?     The  result  was  that  the  county 


Irelafid  under  CromwelL      '  103 

Galway  jurors  were  called  to  Dublin  before  the  Castle 
Chamber ;  every  man  of  them  was  fined  ^4,000,  and 
was  put  into  prison  until  the  fine  was  paid.  Every 
inch  of  their  property  was  taken  from  them,  and  the 
High  Sheriff  of  the  county  Galway,  not  being  a  wealthy 
man,  being  fined  ;£"  1,000,  died  in  jail  because  he  was 
not  able  to  pay  his  fine.  More  than  this.  Not  con- 
tent with  threatening  the  jury  and  coercing  them,  my 
Lord  Strafford  sent  to  the  judges  and  told  them  they 
were  to  get  four  shillings  in  the  pound  for  the  value 
of  every  single  property  confiscated  to  the  crown  of 
England  ;  and  then  he  boasted  publicly  of  it  and  said : 
^*  I  have  made  the  Chief  Baron  and  the  other  justices 
attend  to  this  business  as  if  it  were  their  own  private 
concern."  This  is  the  way  Ireland  was  ruled,  and  this 
is  the  kind  of  rule  that  the  learned  English  historian 
comes  to  America  to  ask  the  honest  and  the  upright 
citizens  of  this  free  country  to  endorse  by  their  ver- 
dict, and  thereby  to  make  themselves  accomplices  in 
England's  robbery.  In  the  same  year  this  Strafford 
instituted  another  tribunal  in  Ireland  which  he  called 
*^  The  Court  of  Wards/'  Do  you  know  what  this  was? 
It  was  found  that  the  Irish  people,  gentle  and  simple, 
were  very  unwilling  to  become  Protestants.  I  have  not 
a  harsh  word  to  say  of  the  Protestants,  but  this  I  will 
say,  that  every  high-minded  Protestant  in  the  world 
must  admire  the  strength  and  the  fidelity  with  which 
Irishmen,  because  of  their  conscience,  cling  to  their 
ancient  faith  and  forms  of  belief.  This  tribunal  was 
instituted  in  order  to  take  the  heirs  of  Catholic  gentle- 


I04  Lectiire  III, 

men  and  bring  them  up  in  the  Protestant  religion,  and 
it  was  to  this  Court  of  Wards  that  we  owe  the  signifi- 
cant fact  that  some  of  the  most  ancient  and  the  best 
names  of  Ireland — the  names  of  men  whose  ancestors 
fought  for  faith  and  fatherland — are  now  Protestants,  * 
and  the  enemies  of  their  Catholic  fellow-subjects.  It  was 
by  this,  by  such  means  as  this,  that  the  men  of  my  own 
name  became  Protestant.  There  was  not  a  drop  of 
Protestant  blood  in  the  veins  of  the  Dun  Earl  or  Red 
Earl  of  Clanricarde.  There  was  not  a  drop  of  other 
than  Catholic  blood  in  the  veins  of  the  heroic  Burkes 
that  fought  during  the  long  centuries  that  went  before 
this  time.  There  was  no  Protestant  blood  in  the 
O'Briens  of  Munster,  nor  in  the  glorious  O'Donnells 
and  O'Neills  of  Ulster.  Let  no  Protestant  American 
citizen  here  imagine  that  I  am  speaking  in  disdain  of 
him  or  of  his  religion.  No  !  But  as  a  historian  I  am 
pointing  out  the  means — which  every  high-minded  man 
must  pronounce  to  be  nefarious — by  which  the  aris- 
tocracy of  Ireland  were  obliged  to  change  their  relig- 
ion. The  Irish  meantime  waited,  and  waited  in  vain, 
for  the  fulfillment  of  the  king's  promise  of  a  concession 
or  a  grace,  as  it  was  called.  At  length  matters  grew 
desperate  between  Charles  and  the  parliament,  and  in 
the  year  1640  Charles  again  renewed  his  promise  to 
the  Irish  people  and  their  parliament,  which  gave  him 
four  subsidies,  eight  thousand  men,  and  one  thousand 
horse,  to  fight  against  the  Scots,  who  had  rebelled 
against  him.  Earl  Strafford  went  home  rejoicing  that 
he   had   got   these   subsidies  and  this  body  of  men ; 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  105 

but  no  sooner  did  he  arrive  in  England  than  the  par- 
liament, now  in  rebellion,  laid  hold  of  him,  and  in  that 
same  year,  1640,  Strafford's  head  was  cut  off,  and  it 
would  be  a  strange  Irishman  that  would  regret  it. 
Meantime  the  people  of  Scotland  rose  in  armed  rebel- 
lion against  their  king.  They  marched  into  England, 
and  what  do  you  think  they  made  by  their  movement? 
They  got  the  full  enjoyment  of  their  religion,  which  was 
not  Protestant,  but  Presbyterian ;  they  got  ;^30o,ooo, 
and  they  got  for  several  months  ;^85o  a  day  to  support 
their  army.  Then  they  retired  into  their  own  country, 
having  achieved  the  purpose  for  which  they  had  re- 
belled. In  the  meantime  the  Catholics  in  Ireland 
were  ground  into  the  very  dust.  What  wonder,  I  ask 
you,  that,  seeing  that  the  king  was  afraid  of  his  Eng- 
lish people,  although  personally  inclined  to  grant 
these  graces — he  had  declared  that  he  had  wished  to 
grant  them,  he  had  pledged  his  royal  word  to  grant 
them,  the  Irish  had  every  evidence  that  if  the  King 
were  free  he  would  grant  them — what  wonder,  I  say, 
that  the  Irish,  seeing  all  this  and  groaning  under  atro- 
cious laws,  should  have  made  an  effort  to  right  them- 
selves. The  king  was  not  free,  because  the  parlia- 
ment and  the  Puritan  faction  in  England  were  in  re- 
bellion. And  so  the  Irish  said,  and  naturally:  ^'Our 
king  is  not  free  ;  if  he  were  he  would  be  just.  Let 
us  arise  in  the  name  of  the  king  and  assert  our  own 
rights."  They  arose  like  one  man.  Every  Irishman, 
every  Catholic  in  Ireland,  arose  on  the  23d  of  Octo- 
ber, 1 641,  with  the  exception  of  the  Catholic  lords  of 

5* 


io6  Lecture  IIL 

the  Pale.  And  now  I  give  you  the  reasons  for  this 
rising,  as  recorded  in  the  memoirs  of  Lord  Castle- 
haven,  who  was  by  no  means  prejudiced  in  favor  of 
the  Irishmen.  He  tells  us  they  rose  for  six  rea- 
sons :  ''•  First,  because  they  were  generally  looked  down 
upon  as  a  conquered  nation,  seldom  or  never  trusted 
like  natural  or  free-born  subjects."  The  old  feeling 
still  coming  up,  dear  friends.  The  very  first  reason 
given  by  this  Englishman  why  the  Irish  people 
rose  was  that  the  English  people  treated  them 
contemptuously.  Oh,  when  will  England  learn  to 
treat  her  subjects  or  her  friends  with  common  re- 
spect ? — when  will  that  proud  Anglo-Saxon  haughti- 
ness condescend  to  urbanity  and  kindness  in  the  treat- 
ment of  those  around  them  ?  I  said  it  in  my  first  lec- 
ture, I  said  it  in  my  second  lecture,  and  I  prove  it  in 
this  ;  that  it  was  the  contempt  as  much  as  the  hatred 
of  the  Englishman  for  the  Irishman  that  lay  at  the 
root,  and  lies  at  the  root  to-day,  of  that  bitter  spirit 
and  terrible  antagonism  that  exist  between  these  two 
nations.  The  second  reason  given  by  my  Lord  Cas- 
tlehaven  is  that  ^'  the  Irish  saw  that  six  whole  coun- 
ties in  Ulster  were  escheated  to  the  crown,  and  little 
or  nothing  was  bestowed  on  the  natives,  but  the  great- 
er part  bestowed  by  King  James  on  his  own  country- 
men, the  Scotch."  The  third  reason  is,  that  in  Straf- 
ford's time  the  crown  laid  claim  to  the  counties  of 
Roscommon,  Mayo,  Galway,  and  Cork,  and  some 
parts  of  Tipperary,  Limerick,  Wicklow  and  others. 
The  fourth   reason   was,  that  '*  great  severities    were 


Ireland  under  Cromwell.  107 

used  against  Roman  Catholics,  which,  to  a  people  so 
fond  of  their  religion  as  the  Irish  are,  was  no  small  in- 
ducement to  make  them,  whilst  there  was  an  oppor- 
tunity, stand  upon  their  guard/*  The  fifth  reason  was 
that  '*  they  see  how  the  Scots,  by  pretending  griev- 
ances and  taking  up  arms  to  get  them  redressed, 
had  not  only  gained  divers  privileges  and  immunities, 
but  got  ;£'300,000  for  their  visit  to  England,  besides 
;£"85o  a  day  for  several  months  together.  And  the 
last  reason  was  that  they  saw  a  storm  brewing,  as  the 
misunderstanding  arose  between  the  king  and  the  par- 
liament. They  believed  that  the  king  would  grant 
them  anything  they  in  reason  could  demand ;  at  least 
more  now  than  they  could  otherwise  expect."  Now, 
I  ask  you,  were  not  these  reasons  sufficient?  I  appeal 
to  the  people  of  America,  I  appeal  to  men  who  know 
what  civil  and  religious  liberty  means,  for  a  high- 
spirited  people  whose  spirit  was  never  broken,  never 
yielded  ;  for  a  people  not  inferior  to  the  Anglo-Saxon, 
either  in  gifts  of  intellect  or  in  bodily  energy ;  for  a 
people  thus  forsaken,  down-trodden,  as  our  fathers 
were,  would  not  one,  any  one,  of  these  reasons  be 
sufficient  justification  to  rise?  And  had  they  not  an 
accumulation  of  all  those  causes,  which  would  have 
made  them  the  meanest  of  mankind  if  they  had  not 
seized  upon  that  opportunity?  An  English  Protestant 
writer  of  the  time,  writing  in  '^  Howell's  Hibernicus," 
in  1643,  says,  ^' That  they  had  sundry  grievances  and 
grounds  of  complaint,  both  touching  their  estates  and 
their   consciences,    which   they  pretended   to   be    far 


io8  Lecture  II L 

greater  than  those  of  the  Scotch ;  for  they  fell  to 
think  that  if  the  Scotch  were  suffered  to  introduce  a 
new  religion,  was  it  reason  they  should  be  punished 
in  the  exercise  of  their  old,  which  they  glory  never  to 
have  altered."  There  was  another  reason  for  the  re- 
volt, my  friends,  and  a  very  competent  one,  and  it  was 
this :  Charles  had  the  weakness  and  the  folly,  I  can 
call  it  nothing  else,  to  leave  at  the  head  of  the  Irish 
cause  two  Lord  Justices  named  Sir  John  Borlass  and 
Sir  William  Parsons.  These  were  both  ardent  Puri- 
tans and  partisans  of  the  parliament ;  they  were  anx- 
ious to  see  the  fall  of  the  English  monarch  ;  they  were 
his  bitterest  enemies,  and  they  thought  he  would  be 
embarrassed  m  his  fight  with  the  parliament  in  Eng- 
land by  a  revolution  in  Ireland,  so  the  very  men  who 
were  the  guardians  of  the  State  lent  themselves  to 
promote  the  revolution  by  every  means  in  their  power. 
For  instance,  six  months  before  this  revolution  broke 
out,  Charles  gave  them  notice  that  he  had  received 
intelligence  that  the  Irish  were  going  to  rise ;  they 
took  no  notice  whatever  of  the  king's  advertisement ; 
the  Lords  of  the  Pale,  who  refused  to  join  the  Irish 
people  in  their  uprising,  appealed  to  the  Justices  in 
Dublin  for  protection,  and  it  was  refused  them ;  they 
asked  to  be  allowed  in  the  city,  that  they  might  be 
saved  from  the  incursions  of  the  Irish,  and  that  per- 
mission was  refused  them  ;  they  were  forced  to  stay 
in  their  castles  and  in  their  houses,  and  the  moment 
that  any  of  the  Irish  in  rebellion  came  near,  their  houses 
and  castles  were  declared  forfeited  to  the  State.     And 


Ireland  under  CromwelL  109 

so  the  English  Catholic  Lords  of  the  Pale — the  Lords 
of  Gormanstown,  Howth,  Trimbleton,  and  many  others, 
were  actually  forced  by  the  government  to  join  hands 
with  the  Irish,  and  to  draw  their  swords  in  the  national 
cause.  Moreover,  the  Irish  knew  that  their  friends 
and  fellow-countrymen  were  earning  distinction  and 
honor  and  glory  upon  all  the  battle-fields  of  Europe, 
in  the  service  of  Spain,  France,  and  Austria,  and  they 
hoped  in  that  rising  that  these  their  countrymen  would 
help  them  in  the  hour  of  their  need. 

Accordingly,  on  the  23d  of  October,  1641,  they  rose. 
What  was  the  first  thing  they  did  ?  According  to  Mr. 
Froude,  the  first  thing  they  did  was  to  massacre  all  the 
Protestants  that  they  could  lay  their  hands  on.  Well, 
thank  God,  this  is  not  the  fact.  The  very  first  thing 
that  their  leader.  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill,  did,  was  to  issue 
a  proclamation,  on  the  very  day  of  the  rising,  which 
spread  through  all  Ireland,  in  which  he  declared : 
**  These  are  to  intimate  and  make  known  unto  all  per- 
sons whatsoever,  in  and  through  the  whole  country, 
that  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  us  whose  names 
are  hereunto  subscribed,  that  the  first  assembling  of 
us  is  nowise  intended  against  our  Sovereign  Lord  the 
King,  nor  hurt  of  any  of  his  subjects,  either  English 
or  Scotch,  but  only  for  the  defense  and  liberty  of  our- 
selves and  the  Irish  natives  of  this  kingdom.  And  we 
further  declare,  that  whatsoever  hurt  hitherto  h?th 
been  done  to  any  person  shall  be  speedily  repaired  ; 
and  we  will  that  every  person  forthwith,  after  proc- 
lamation hereof,  make  their  speedy  repair  unto  th^ir 


I  lo  Lecture  III, 

own  houses  under  pain  of  death,  that  no  further  hurt 
be  done  unto  any  one  under  the  like  pain,  and  that  this 
be  proclaimed  in  all  places.  At  Dunga^inon^  23  October^ 
1641. — Phelim  O'Neill." 

Did  they  keep  this  declaration  of  theirs  ?  Most 
inviolably.  I  assert,  in  the  name  of  history,  that  they 
did  not  massacre  the  Protestants,  and  I  will  prove  it 
from  Protestant  authority.  We  find  despatches  from 
the  Irish  Government  to  the  government  in  England,  of 
the  27th  of  that  same  month,  in  which  they  gave  them 
the  account  of  the  rising  of  the  Irish  people  ;  there 
they  complained,  telling  how  the  Irish  stripped  their 
Protestant  fellow-citizens,  took  their  cattle,  took  their 
houses,  and  took  their  property — but  not  one  single 
word  of  complaint  about  one  drop  of  bloodshed.  And 
if  they  took  their  cattle  and  houses  and  property,  you 
must  remember  that  they  only  took  back  what  was 
their  own.  A  very  short  time  afterwards  the  massacre 
began ;  and  who  began  it  ?  The  Protestant  Ulster 
settlers  fled  from  the  Irish  ;  they  brought  their  lives 
with  them,  at  least,  and  they  entered  the  town  of  Car- 
rickfergus,  where  they  found  a  garrison  of  Scotch 
Puritans.  Now,  in  the  confusion  that  arose,  the  poor 
country-people,  frightened,  all  fled  into  an  obscure 
part  of  the  country,  near  Carrickfergus,  to  a  peninsula 
sea  called  Island  Magee.  They  were  there  collected 
for  the  purposes  of  safety  to  the  number  of  more  than 
three  thousand.  The  very  first  thing  these  English 
Puritans  and  a  Scotch  garrison  did,  when  they  came 
together,  was  to  steal  out  of  Carrickfergus  in  the  night- 


Ireland  under  CromwelL  1 1 1 

time,  go  into  the  midst  of  that  innocent  and  unarmed 
people,  and  they  slaughtered  man,  woman  and  child, 
until  they  left  three  thousand  dead  behind  them.  And 
we  have  the  authority  of  Leland,  an  English  Protest- 
ant historian,  who  expressly  says,  *'  This  was  the  first 
massacre  committed  m.  Ireland  on  either  side."  How 
in  the  name  of  heaven  can  any  man  so  learned  and,  I 
make  no  doubt,  so  truthful  as  Mr.  Froude — how  can 
he,  in  the  name  of  history,  assert  that  these  people  be- 
gan by  massacring  thirty-eight  thousand  of  his  fel- 
low-countrymen— fellow-religionists,  when  we  had  in 
the  month  of  December,  four  months  after — we  had  a 
commission  issued  by  the  Lord  Justice  in  Dublin  to 
the  Dean  of  Kilmore,  and  to  seven  other  Protestant 
clergymen,  to  make  diligent  inquiry  about  the  English 
and  Scotch  Protestants  who  were  robbed  and  plunder- 
ed, but  not  one  single  inquiry — not  one  word  about 
all  those  who  were  murdered  ?  The  Catholics  were 
urged  into  rebellion,  and  the  Lords  Justices  were  often 
heard  to  say  that  the  more  there  were  in  rebellion,  the 
more  lands  would  be  forfeited  to  them.  **  Some  time 
before  the  rebellion  broke  out,"  says  Carte,  ^'Sir  John 
Clotworthy  declared,  in  a  speech  in  the  English  House 
of  Commons,  that  the  conversion  of  the  Irish  Papists 
would  only  be  effected  by  the  sword  in  one  hand  and 
the  Bible  in  the  other,  and  Mr.  Pym  gave  out  that 
they  would  not  leave  a  priest  in  Ireland."  Sir  Wm. 
Parsons  (one  of  the  Lord  Justices)  positively  asserted 
before  so  many  witnesses  at  a  public  entertainment 
that  within  twelve  months  no  Catholic  should  be  seen 


1 1 2  Lecture  III, 

in  Ireland.  It  was  the  old  story — it  was  the  old  adage 
of  James  I :  ^®  ^' Root  out  the  Irish;  give  Ireland  to 
English  Protestants  and  Puritans  and  you  will  re- 
generate the  land  ! "  Oh  !  from  such  regeneration, 
for  my  own  land,  or  any  other  land  or  people,  good* 
Lord,  deliver  us  !  "'  This  rebellion,"  says  Mr.  Froude, 
*'  began  in  massacre  and  ended  in  ruin."  It  ended  in 
ruin  most  terribly;  but  if  it  began  in  massacre,  Mr. 
Froude,  you  must  acknowledge  as  historical  truth  that 
the  massacre  was  on  the  part  of  your  countrymen  and 
your  religionists.  Then  the  war  began — a  war  far  more 
religious  than  national ;  for,  in  truth,  the  emancipation 
of  Ireland  from  the  English  yoke  was  never  contem- 
plated nor  mentioned  throughout.  It  was  an  uprising 
of  the  Catholics  against  the  sanguinary  spirit  of  Puri- 
tanism, which  openly  threatened  them  with  utter  de- 
struction. Dr.  Warner  tells  us  that  it  was  evident, 
from  a  letter  of  the  Lords  Justices  to  the  Earl  of  Lei- 
cester, the  Lord  Lieutenant,  ^*  that  they  hoped  for  an 
extirpation,  not  of  mere  Irish  only,  but  of  all  the  old 
English  families  that  were  Roman  Catholic."  It  was 
a  war  that  continued  for  seven  years  ;  it  was  a  war  in 
which  the  Irish  chieftains  had  not  the  destinies  of  their 
nation  in  their  own  hands,  as  Mr.  Froude  asserts  ;  but 
were  obliged  to  fight,  and  to  fight  like  men,  in  order 
to  try  and  achieve  a  better  destiny  and  a  better  future 
for  their  people.  Who  can  say  that  the  Irish  chieftains 
held  the  destinies  of  Ireland  in  their  hands  during  these 
nine  years  when  they  had  to  meet  every  successive 
armv  that  came  to  them,  inflamed  with  reliirious  hatred 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  113 

and  enmity,  but  animated,  I  must  say,  by  a  spirit  of 
bravery  of  which  the  world  has  seldom  seen  the  like  ? 
Then  he  adds,  ^^  That  these  were  years  of  anarchy  and 
mutual  slaughter."  Now  let  us  consider  the  history 
of  the  event.  No  sooner  had  the  English  Lords  of 
the  Pale,  who  were  all  Catholics,  joined  the  Irish,  than 
they  at  once  turned  to  the  Catholic  bishops  who  were 
in  the  land.  They  called  them  together  in  synod,  and 
on  the  loth  of  May,  1642,  the  bishops  of  Ireland,  the 
lords  of  Ireland,  the  gentry  and  commoners  met  to- 
gether and  founded  what  is  called  The  Confederation 
of  Kilkenny.  Amongst  their  numbers  they  selected 
for  the  supreme  council,  three  archbishops,  two  bish- 
ops, four  lords,  and  fifteen  commoners.  These  men 
were  to  remain  in  permanent  session,  governing  the 
country,  making  laws,  watching  over  the  army,  and, 
above  all,  preventing  cruelty,  robbery,  and  murder.  A 
regular  government  was  formed,  and  they  actually  es- 
tablished a  mint,  and  coined  there  money  for  the  Irish 
nation.  They  established  an  army  under  Owen  Roe 
O'Neill,  who  commanded  the  Ulster  troops,  Thomas 
Preston,  who  took  the  command  in  Leinster,  Gerald 
Barry  in  Munster,  and  John  Burke  as  Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral  for  Connaught.  During  the  first  month  they 
gained  some  successes.  Most  of  the  principal  cities  in 
Ireland  opened  their  gates  to  them  ;  the  garrisons 
were  carefully  saved  from  slaughter,  and  the  moment 
their  opponents  laid  down  their  arms,  their  lives  were 
as  sacred  as  that  of  any  man  in  the  ranks  of  their  own 
army.     Not  a  drop  of  blood  was  shed  by  the  Irish  with 


114  Lecture  III. 

any  sort  of  connivance  on  the  part  of  the  government 
of  the  country — that  i^  to  say,  the  Supreme  Council 
of  Kilkenny.  I  defy  any  man  to  prove  that  there 
was  a  single  act  which  that  Supreme  Council  enacted, 
which  could  sanction  or  approve,  directly  or  indirectly, 
deeds  of  violence.  Now,  after  a  few  months  of  suc- 
cesses, the  army  of  the  Confederation  experienced 
some  reverses.  The  Puritan  party  was  recruited  and 
fortified  by  English  armies  coming  in,  and  the  com- 
mand in  Dublin  was  given  to  a  gentleman  whose  name 
ought  to  be  familiar  to  every  Irishman.  His  name  was 
Sir  Charles  Coote,  and  I  want  to  read  some  of  that 
gentleman's  exploits  to  you.  **  Sir  Charles,"  and  mind 
you  this  is  by  Clarendon,  no  friend  of  Ireland,  ^'  be- 
sides plundering  and  burning  the  town  of  Clontarf,  at 
that  time  did  massacre  sixteen  of  the  towns-people, 
men  and  women,  besides  three  suckling  infants  ;  and 
in  that  very  same  week  fifty-six  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren, in  the  village  of  Bullough,  being  frightened  at 
what  had  been  done  in  Clontarf,  went  to  sea  to 
shun  the  fury  of  a  party  of  soldiers  which  had  come 
out  of  Dublin,  under  Col.  Clifford,  and  being  pursued 
by  the  soldiers  in  boats,  they  were  overtaken  and 
thrown  overboard."  Sir  William  Burliss  advised  the 
governor,  Sir  Charles  Coote,  to  the  burning  of  corn, 
and  to  give  man,  woman  and  child  to  the  sword.  Sir 
Arthur  Loft  us  writes  to  the  same  purpose  and  same 
effect.  An  edict  of  the  council  at  that  time  will  tell 
you  in  what  spirit  our  Protestant  friends  waged  their 
wars  with   us  :    ^'  It  is  resolved  that  it  is  fit  that  his 


I 


Ireland  under  Cromwell.  115 

Lordship  do  endeavor  "  with  his  Majesty's  forces  (this 
was  given  to  Earl  Ormond)  "•  to  wound,  kill,  slay  and 
destroy,  by  all  the  ways  and  means  that  he  may,  all  the 
said  rebels  and  their  adherents  and  relievers,  and  burn, 
spoil,  waste,  consume,  destroy  and  demolish  all  the 
places,  towns,  and  houses  where  the  rebels  are  or  have 
been  relieved  or  harbored,  and  all  the  hay  and  corn 
therein,  and  to  kill  and  destroy  all  the  men  there  in- 
habiting capable  to  bear  arms.  Given  at  the  Castle  of 
Dublin,  on  the  23d  of  February,  1641."  And  signed  by 
six  precious  names.  Listen  to  this  :  Sir  Arthur 
Loftus,  Governor  of  Naas,  marched  out  with  a  party 
of  horse,  which  was  joined  by  another  party  sent 
from  Dublin  by  the  Marquis  of  Ormond,  and 
they  killed  such  of  the  Irish  as  they  met,  without 
stopping  to  inquire  whether  they  were  rebels  or 
not.  Oh,  my  friends !  Hsten  to  this :  "  But  the 
most  considerable  slaughter  was  in  a  great  strait  of 
furze  seated  on  a  hill  where  the  people  of  several 
villages,  taking  the  alarm,  had  sheltered  themselves. 
Now,  Sir  Arthur,  having  invested  the  hill,  set  the 
furze  on  fire  on  all  sides,  where  the  people,  being  in 
considerable  numbers,  were  all  burned  or  killed,  men, 
women,  and  children.  I  saw,"  says  Castlehaven,  ^^  the 
bodies  and  the  furze  still  burning."  In  the  years 
1641  and  '42,  many  thousands  of  the  poor  innocent 
people  of  the  county  of  Dublin,  shunning  and  fearing 
the  English  soldiers,  fled  into  the  thickets  and  furze, 
which  the  soldiers  actually  fired,  killing  as  many  as 
endeavored  to  escape,  or  forcing  them  back  again  to 


ii6  Lecture  III, 

be  burned.  And  for  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants,  for 
the  most  part,  they  died  of  famine.  Not  only  by  land, 
where  we  read  of  sometimes  seven  thousand  of  our 
people,  men,  women,  and  children,  without  discrimina- 
tion, being  destroyed  by  these  demons  as  recorded, 
by  the  historian  Borlase,  who  tells  us,  speaking  of  Sir 
William  Coles*  regiment :  **  Starved  and  famished  of  the 
vulgar  sort,  whose  goods  were  seized  on  by  this  regi- 
ment, seven  thousand ;  **  but  even  by  sea,  we  read 
that  there  was  a  law  made  if  any  Irishmen  were  found 
on  board  ships  by  his  Majesty's  cruisers  they  were  to 
be  destroyed.  *^  The  Earl  of  Warwick  [this  is  in 
Clarendon's  account]  and  the  officers  under  him  at 
sea,  had,  as  often  as  he  met  with  any  Irish  frigates,  or 
such  freebooters  as  sailed  under  commission,  taken 
all  the  seamen  who  became  prisoners  to  them  of  the 
nation  of  Ireland,  and  bound  them  back  to  back  and 
thrown  them  overboard  into  the  sea  without  distinc- 
tion as  to  their  condition,  if  they  were  Irish.**  In  this 
cruel  manner  very  many  poor  men  perished  daily 
of  which  the  king  said  nothing,  because  his  Majesty 
could  not  complain  of  it  without  being  concerned  in 
favor  of  the  rebels  in  Ireland.  Again,  the  Marquis 
of  Ormond  sent  Captain  Anthony  Willoughby  with 
one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  who  had  formerly  served 
in  the  fort  of  Galway,  from  thence  to  Bristol.  The 
ship  that  carried  them  was  taken  by  a  Captain  Swan- 
ley,  who  was  so  inhuman  as  to  throw  seventy  of  the 
soldiers  overboard,  under  the  pretense  that  they  were 
Irishmen,    although    they    had    faithfully   served    his 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  1 1  / 

Majesty  against  the  rebels  there  in  the  time  of  the 
war.  You  will  ask  if  that  captain  was  punished 
for  the  slaughter.  Here  is  the  punishment  he 
got.  In  June,  1644,  we  read  in  the  journal  of  the 
English  House  of  Commons,  that  Captain  Swanley 
was  called  into  the  House  and  had  given  to  him,  by 
the  English  House  of  Commons,  for  his  good  ser- 
vice, a  chain  of  gold  of  ;^200  value,  and  Captain 
Smith  had  another  of  ;^ioo  value.  Sir  Richard  Gren- 
ville  was  very  much  esteemed  by  the  Earl  of  Leices- 
ter, who  was  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  and 
more  still  by  the  Parliament,  for  the  signal  act 
of  cruelty  he  had  committed  upon  the  Irish,  hang- 
ing old  men  who  were  bedridden  because  they  would 
not  discover  where  their  money  was,  and  old  women, 
some  of  whom  he  killed  after  he  had  plundered  them 
and  found  less  than  he  had  expected.  In  a  word,  they 
committed  atrocities  which  I  am  ashamed  and  afraid 
to  mention.  They  tossed  infants  taken  from  their 
mothers'  bosom,  upon  their  bayonets.  Sir  Charles 
Coote  saw  one  of  his  soldiers  playing  with  a  child, 
throwing  it  into  the  air  and  then  spitting  it  upon  his 
bayonet,  and  he  laughed  and  said  he  enjoyed  such 
frolic.  They  brought  children  into  the  world  before 
their  time  by  the  Caesarian  operation  of  the  sword, 
and  the  children  thus  brought  forth  by  them  into 
misery  from  out  of  the  womb  of  their  dead  mothers 
they  immolated  and  sacrificed  in  the  most  cruel  and 
terrible  manner.  I  am  afraid,  I  say  again,  afraid  of 
your  blood  and  mine,  to  tell  one-tenth,  aye,  one-hun- 


ii8  Lecture  III, 

dredth  part  of  the  cruelties  that  these  terrible  men 
committed  upon  our  race. 

Nqw  I  ask  you  to  contrast  with  all  this,  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  Irish  troops  and  the  Irish  people  be- 
haved, "  I  took  Athy  by  storm/'  says  Lord  Castle-^ 
haven,  "  with  all  the  garrison,  700  men,  prisoners.  I 
made  a  present  of  them  to  Cromwell,  desiring  him  by 
letter  that  he  would  do  the  like  with  me,  as  any  of 
mine  should  fall  into  his  power.  But  he  little  valued 
my  civility,  for  in  a  few  days  after  he  besieged  Gow- 
ran,  and  the  soldiers  .  .  .  giving  up  the  place  with 
the  officers,  he  caused  the  Governor  and  some  other 
officers  to  be  put  to  death.** 

Sir  William  St.  Leger,  going  down  into  Munster, 
seems  to  have  slaughtered  man,  woman,  and  child,  upon 
his  march.  Among  others,  a  man  named  Philip  Ryan, 
who  was  the  principal  farmer  of  that  place,  he  put  to 
death  without  the  slightest  hesitation,  but  some  of 
Philip  Ryan's  friends  and  relatives  retaliated  somewhat 
on  the  English,  and  there  was  fear  that  the  Catholic  peo- 
ple would  massacre  all  the  Protestant  inhabitants  of  the 
place.  Now  mark  what  follows:  **A11  the  rest  of  the 
English''  (this  is  in  Cartes'  life  of  Ormond),  *^  All  the  rest 
of  the  English  were  saved  by  the  inhabitants  of  that 
place  in  their  houses,  and  had  the  goods  which  they 
confided  to  them  safely  restored.  Dr.  Samuel  Pullen, 
the  Protestant  Chancellor  of  Cashel,  and  the  Dean  of 
Clonfert,  with  his  wife  and  children,  was  preserved  by 
Father  James  Saul,  a  Jesuit.  Several  other  Romish 
priests  distinguished  themselves  on  this  occasion  by 


h'eland  under  Ci'omwelL  119 

their  endeavors  to  save  the  English,  particularly  Father 
Joseph  Everard,  and  Redmond  English,  both  Francis- 
can friars,  who  hid  some  of  them  in  their  chapel,  and 
even  under  their  altar.  The  English  who  were  thus 
preserved  were  according  to  their  desire  safely  con- 
veyed into  the  county  of  Cork,  by  a  guard  of  the  Irish 
inhabitants  of  Cashel.  Now,  my  friends,  the  war  went 
on  from  1641  to  1649,  with  varying  success.  Cardinal 
Runuccini  was  sent  over  by  the  Pope  to  preside  over 
the  Supreme  Council  of  the  Confederation  of  Kilken- 
ny, some  time  before  the  news  came  to  Ireland  that 
gladdened  the  nation's  heart,  namely,  that  the  illus- 
trious Owen  Roe  O'Neill  had  landed  upon  the  coast 
of  Ulster.  This  man  was  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished officers  in  the  Spanish  service,  at  a  time  when 
the  Spanish  infantry  were  acknowledged  to  be  the 
finest  troops  in  the  world.  He  landed  in  Ireland. 
He  organized  an  army,  drilled  them  and  armed  them 
— though  imperfectly — but  he  was  a  host  in  himself; 
and  in  the  second  year  after  his  arrival  he  drew  up  his 
army,  and  met  General  Munro,  and  his  English  forces, 
at  the  ford  of  Benburb,  on  the  Blackwater.  The  bat- 
tle began  in  the  morning,  and  raged  throughout  the 
early  hours  of  the  day,  and  before  the  evening  sun 
had  set,  England's  main  and  best  army  was  flying  in 
confusion,  and  three  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty- 
three  of  their  best  soldiers  were  stretched  upon  the 
field,  and  choking  up  the  ford  of  Benburb,  whilst  the 
Irish  soldier  stood  triumphant  upon  the  field  which 
his  genius  and  his  valor  had  won.     Partly  through  the 


120  Lecture  III. 

treachery  of  Ormond  and  Preston,  partly  and  mainly 
through  the  agency  of  the  English  lords,  who  were 
coquetting  with  the  English  government,  the  confed- 
eration began  \o  experience  the  most  disastrous  defeats, 
and  Ireland's  cause  was  already  broken  and  almost  lost, 
when,  in  the  year  1649,  Oliver  Cromwell  arrived  in 
Ireland.  Mr.  Froude  says,  and  truly,  that  he  did  not 
come  to  make  war  with  rosewater,  but  with  the  thick, 
warm  blood  of  the  Irish  people.  Mr.  Froude  prefaces  the 
introduction  of  Oliver  Cromwell  to  Ireland  by  telling  us 
that  the  Lord  Protector  was  a  great  friend  of  Ireland — 
a  liberal-minded  man  that  interfered  with  no  man's 
liberty  of  conscience,  and  he  adds  that  if  Cromwell's 
policy  was  carried  out,  *^  in  all  probability  I  would  not 
be  here  speaking  to  you  of  our  differences  with  Ire- 
land to-day."  He  adds,  moreover,  that  Cromwell  had 
formed  a  design  for  the  pacification  of  Ireland,  which 
**  would  have  made  future  trouble  there  impossible." 
What  was  this  design  ?  Lord  Macaulay  tells  us  what 
this  design  was.  Cromwell's  avowed  purpose  was  to 
end  all  difficulties  in  Ireland,  whether  they  arose  from 
the  land  question  or  from  the  religious  question,  by 
putting  a  total  and  entire  end  to  the  Irish  race  by 
exterminating  them  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  This 
was  the  admirable  policy,  my  friends,  in  order  to  pacify 
Ireland  and  create  peace ;  for  the  best  way,  and  the 
simplest  way,  to  keep  any  man  quiet  is  by  cutting  his 
throat.  The  dead  do  not  speak,  the  dead  do  not 
move,  the  dead  do  not  trouble  any  one.  Cromwell 
came  to  destroy  the  Irish  race,  and  the  Irish  Catholic 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  1 2 1 

faith  of  the  people ;  and  so  to  put  an  end  at  once  to 
all  claims  for  land,  and  to  all  disputes  arising  out  of  a 
religious  persecution.  But  I  ask  this  learned  gentle- 
man, does  he  imagine  that  the  people  of  America  are 
either  so  ignorant  or  so  wicked  as  to  accept  the  mon- 
strous proposition  that  the  man  who  came  into  Ireland 
with  such  an  avowed  purpose  as  this,  could  be  declared 
to  be  the  friend  of  the  real  interests  of  the  Irish  peo- 
ple? Does  he  imagine  there  is  no  intelligence  in 
America ;  that  there  is  no  manhood  in  America ;  that 
there  is  no  love  for  freedom,  and  for  life  in  America? 
and  the  man  must  be  an  enemy  of  religion  and  of  life 
itself  before  such  a  man  can  sympathize  with  the 
blood-stained  Oliver  Cromwell.  These  words  of  the 
historian,  I  regret  to  say,  sound  like  bitter  irony  and 
mockery  in  the  ears  of  a  people  whose  fathers  Crom- 
well came  to  destroy.  *^But,"  he  says,  ^^  the  Lord 
Protector  did  not  interfere  with  any  man's  conscience. 
The  Irish,"  he  says,  '^demanded  liberty  of  conscience. 
*  I  interfere  with  no  man's  conscience,'  says  the  Lord 
Protector,  *  but  if  by  liberty  of  conscience  you  Catholics 
mean  having  a  priest  and  the  Mass,  I  can  tell  you  you 
cannot  have  this,  and  you  never  will  have  it  as  long  as 
the  Parliament  of  England  has  power  ! '  "  Now,  I  ask 
you,  what  do  these  words  mean?  To  grant  the  Cath- 
olics liberty  of  conscience ;  their  consciences  telling 
them  that  their  first  and  very  greatest  duty  is  the 
hearing  of  the  Mass — to  grant  them  liberty  of  con- 
science, and  then  to  deny  them  the  priest  and  their 
Mass.     Surely  it  is  a  contradiction  in  words  and  an 


122  Lecture  III, 

insult  to  intelligence  to  propound  so  monstrous  a 
proposition  !  *^  But/'  says  Mr.  Froude,  ^*  you  must  un- 
derstand me.  Of  course  I  acknowledge  the  Mass  to 
be  an  ancient  and  beautiful  rite  ;  but  you  must  re- 
member that  in  Cromwell's  mind  the  Mass  only  meant 
a  system  that  was  shedding  blood  all  over  Europe ;  a 
system  of  the  Church  that  never  knew  mercy,  but 
slaughtered  the  people  everywhere ;  and,  therefore,  he 
was  resolved  to  have  none  of  it."  Ah !  my  friends,  if 
the  Mass  was  the  symbol  of  slaughter,  Oliver  Crom- 
well would  have  had  more  sympathy  with  the  Mass. 

And  so  the  historian  seeks  to  justify  the  cruelty  in 
Ireland  against  the  Catholics  by  alleging  cruelty  on 
the  part  of  the  Catholics  against  their  Protestant  fel- 
low-subjects in  other  lands.  Now,  this  word  of  the 
historian  he  has  repeated  over  and  over  again  in  many 
of  his  writings  at  other  times  and  in  other  places,  and* 
I  may  as  well  put  an  end  to  this.  Mr.  Froude  says : 
"  I  hold  the  Catholic  Church  accountable  for  all  the 
blood  that  the  Duke  of  Alva  shed  in  the  Nether- 
lands;  "  and  I  say  to  Mr.  Froude;  I  deny  it.  I  can- 
not allow  the  Catholic  Church  to  be  made  accountable 
for  the  acts  of  Alva  or  of  his  master,  Charles  V.,  or  of 
any  other  emperor,  general,  or  scheming  politician, 
were  he  a  cardinal,  a  bishop,  or  any  other.  I  never 
will  accept  a  Richelieu,  a  Wolscy,  or  a  Mazzarin,  as  re- 
flecting either  the  genius  or  spirit  of  Catholicity  ;  and 
as  to  Charles  V.  and  his  servant  Alva,  we  all  know  that 
they  were  perfectly  willing  to  sack  Rome  and  oppress 
the   Pope  whenever  it  suited  their  political  purposes. 


Ireland  under  CroinwelL  123 

Alva  fought  in  the  Netherlands  against  subjects  that 
rebelled  against  the  King  of  Spain.  Alva  fought  in 
the  Netherlands  against  a  people,  the  first  principles 
of  whose  new  religion  seemed  to  be  an  uprising  against 
authority ;  of  the  State  questions  the  Catholic 
Church  had  nothing  to  say.  If  Alva  shed  the  blood 
of  the  rebels,  and  if  these  rebels  happened  to  be  Prot- 
estants, there  is  no  reason  for  fathering  the  shedding 
of  that  blood  upon  the  Catholic  Church.  Mr.  Froude 
says  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  answerable  for  the 
blood  that  was  shed  in  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew's Day  under  Marie  de  Medicis  in  France.  I  deny 
it.  The  woman  who  gave  that  order  had  no  sympathy 
for  the  Catholic  Church.  It  was  altogether  a  State 
measure.  She  had  France  divided  into  factions,  and 
she  endeavored  by  court  intrigue  and  villainy  of  her 
own — for  a  most  villainous  woman  she  was — to  stifle 
the  opposition  of  certain  people  with  blood.  The  rep- 
resentations that  were  made  in  Rome  were  that  the 
king's  life  was  in  terrible  danger,  and  that  that  life 
was  preserved  by  heaven  ;  and  Rome  sang  a  te  demn 
for  the  safety  of  the  king  and  not  for  the  shedding  of 
the  blood  of  the  Huguenots.  And  then  among  these 
Huguenots  there  were  Catholics  who  were  slain  be- 
cause they  were  in  the  opposite  division  and  faction. 
This  proves  that  the  Catholic  Church  was  not  answer- 
able for  the  shedding  of  such  blood.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  blood  that  was  shed  in  Ireland  was 
shed  exclusively  on  account  of  religion  at  this  particu- 
lar time;  for  when,  in  1643,  Charles  I.  made  a  treaty 


124  Lecture  IIL 

for  a  cessation  of  hostilities  with  the  Irish  through  the 
confederation  of  Kilkenny,  the  EngHsh  Parliament, 
as  soon  as  they  heard  that  the  king  had  ceased  hostili- 
ties for  a  time  with  their  Irish  patriotic  fellow-subjects, 
at  once  came  in  and  said  :  *'  September  20,  1643.  It 
was  resolved,  upon  the  question,  that  this  house  doth 
hold  that  a  present  cessation  of  arms  with  the  rebels 
in  Ireland  is  destructive  to  the  Protestant  religion." 

I  regret  to  say,  my  Protestant  friends,  that  the  men 
of  1643,  the  members  of  the  Puritan  House  of  Parlia- 
ment in  England,  have  fastened  upon  that  form  of 
religion  the  formal  argument  and  reason  why  Irish 
blood  was  to  flow  in  torrents — lest  the  Protestant 
religion  might  suffer.  In  this  day  of  ours  we  are  en- 
deavoring to  put  away  from  us  all  sectarian  bigotry, 
and  we  deplore  the  faults  committed  by  our  fathers 
on  both  sides.  Mr.  Froude  deplores  the  blood  that 
was  shed,  and  so  do  I.  But,  my  friends,  it  is  a  his- 
torical question,  resting  upon  historic  fact  and  evi- 
dence, and  I  am  bound  to  appeal  to  history  as  well  as 
my  learned  antagonist,  and  to  discriminate  and  put 
back  the  word  which  he  puts  out,  namely,  *'  that  tolera- 
tion is  the  genius  of  Protestantism."  He  makes  this 
astounding  assertion  in  his  third  lecture,  that  persecu- 
tion was  hostile  to  the  genius  of  Protestantism.  Nay,  he 
goes  further  and  says,  speaking  of  the  Mass,  that  ''  the 
Catholic  Church  has  learned  to  borrow  one  beautiful 
gem  from  the  crown  of  her  adversary — she  has  learned 
to  respect  the  rights  of  conscience  in  others."  I  wish 
that  the  learned  gentleman's  statement  could  be  more 


Irela7td  under  CromwelL  1 2  5 

fully  proved  by  history.  Oh,  how  much  I  desire  that 
in  saying  these  words  he  had  spoken  historic  truth. 
No  doubt  he  believes  what  he  says ;  but  I  ask  him, 
and  I  ask  every  Protestant  here  to-night,  at  what 
time,  in  what  age,  in  what  land,  has  Protestantism 
ever  been  in  the  ascendant  without  persecuting  the 
Catholics  who  were  around  them?  I  say  it  not  in 
bitterness,  but  I  say  it  simply  as  historic  truth.  I 
cannot  find  in  the  records  of  history  during  these  ages 
up  to  a  few  years  ago  any  time  when  Protestants  in 
Ireland,  in  Sweden,  in  Germany,  or  anywhere  else,  gave 
the  slightest  toleration,  or  even  permission  to  live 
when  they  could  take  life  from  their  Catholic  fellow- 
subjects.  Even  to-day  where  is  the  strongest  spirit 
of  religious  persecution?  Is  in  not  in  Protestant 
Sweden?  Is  it  not  in  Protestant  Denmark?  Who 
to-day  are  persecuting,  I  ask  you?  Is  it  Catholics? 
No !  but  Protestant  Bismarck  in  Germany. 

All  this  I  say  with  regret  and  shame.  I  am  not 
only  a  Catholic,  but  a  priest ;  not  only  a  priest,  but  a 
monk ;  not  only  a  monk,  but  a  Dominican  monk ;  and 
from  out  of  the  depths  of  my  soul  I  repel  and  re- 
pudiate the  principle  of  religious  persecution  for  any 
cause,  in  any  land.  Oliver,  the  apostle  of  blessings  to 
Ireland,  landed  in  1649.  He  besieged  Drogheda, 
defended  by  Sir  Arthur  Aston  and  by  a  brave  garri- 
son, and  when  he  had  breached  the  walls,  when  they 
found  their  position  was  no  longer  tenable,  they 
asked,  in  the  military  language  of  the  day,  that  they 
would  be   spared  and   quarter   given.      That    quarter 


126  Lecture  III, 

was  promised  to  all  the  men  who  ceased  fighting 
and  laid  down  their  a^-ms.  **  All  the  officers  and 
soldiers  of  Cromwell's  army  promised  quarter  to  such 
as  should  lay  down  their  arms,  and  performed  it  as 
long  as  the  place  held  out ;  which  encouraged  others 
\,oy\^\(5i''  (Carte),  **The  soldiers  threw  down  their 
arms  upon  a  general  offer  of  quarter  "  (Clarendon), 
"  Quarter  was  offered  and  accepted  "  (Lingard),  The 
promise  was  observed  until  the  town  was  taken. 
When  the  town  was  in  his  hands,  Oliver  Cromwell 
gave  orders  to  his  army  for  an  indiscriminate  massacre 
of  the  garrison,  and  of  every  man,  woman,  and  child 
of  that  large  city.  The  people,  when  they  saw  the 
soldiers  slain  around  them,  when  they  saw  the  men 
killed  on  every  side,  when  they  saw  the  streets  of 
Drogheda  flowing  with  blood  for  five  days,  fled,  to 
the  number  of  a  thousand  of  aged  men,  and  women, 
and  children,  and  they  took  refuge  in  the  great  church 
of  St.  Peter,  in  Drogheda.  Oliver  Cromwell  drew  his 
army  around  that  church,  and  out  of  that  church 
he  never  allowed  one  of  these  thousand  innocent 
people  to  escape  alive.  He  then  proceeded  to  Wex- 
ford, and  there  a  certain  commander-  of  the  garrison, 
named  Stafford,  admitted  him  into  the  city,  and  he 
massacred  the  people  there  again.  Three  hundred 
of  the  women  of  Wexford,  with  their  little  children, 
gathered  around  the  great  market  cross,  in  the  public 
square  of  the  city ;  for  they  thought  in  their  hearts, 
all  terrible  as  he  was,  that  he  would  respect  and  save 
those  who  were  under  the  sign  of  man's  redemption, 


Ireland  under  Cromwell.  127 

that  he  would  spare  all  those  who  were  under  the 
image  of  the  rood.  Oh,  how  vain  the  thought!  Three 
hundred  poor  defenseless  women  screaming  for  mercy 
under  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  Cromwell  and 
his  barbarous  demons  around  them.  He  destroyed 
them,  so  as  not  to  let  one  of  those  innocents  escape 
until  his  men  were  ankle  deep  in  the  blood  of  the 
women  of  Wexford.  He  retired  from  Ireland  after 
having  glutted  himself  with  the  blood  of  the  peo- 
ple. He  retired  from  Ireland,  but  he  wound  up  his 
war  by  taking  80,000  and  some  say  100,000,  and  driv- 
ing them  down  to  the  southern  ports  of  Munster.  He 
shipped  80,000  at  the  least  calculation  to  the  sugar 
plantations  of  Barbadoes,  there  to  work  as  slaves,  and 
in  six  years*  time  such  was  the  treatment  they  received 
there,  that  out  of  the  80,000  there  were  not  twenty 
men  left.  He  collected  6,000  Irish  boys,  fair,  beauti- 
ful, stripling  youths,  and  he  put  them  in  ships  and  sent 
them  also  off  to  Barbadoes,  there  to  languish  and  to  die 
before  they  ever  came  to  the  fullness  of  their  age,  and  of 
their  manhood.  Oh,  great  God  !  is  this  the  man  ?  is 
this\\i^  man  who  has  an  apologist  in  the  learned,  frank, 
generous,  and  gentlemanly  historian,  who  comes,  in 
oily  words,  to  tell  the  American  people  that  Cromwell 
was  one  of  the  bravest  men  that  ever  lived,  and  one 
of  the  best  friends  that  Ireland  ever  had  ?  Now  v/e 
must  pass  on.  Oliver  died  in  1658.  Here  I  meet  a 
singular  assertion  of  Mr.  Froude's,  who  tells  us  that 
much  as  he  regrets  all  the  blood  that  was  shed 
by   a    terrible    vengeance,    still    it    resulted  in  great 


128  Lecture  III. 

good  for  Ireland.  And  the  good  consisted  in 
this :  the  Parliament,  after  Cromweirs  victories,  found 
themselves  masters  of  Ireland,  and  the  Irish  people 
lying  in  blood  and  ruin  before  them — what  was  their 
next  measure  ?  Their  next  measure  was  to  pass  a  law 
driving  all  the  people  of  Ireland  who  owned  any  por- 
tion of  the  land,  all  the  Irish  landowners  and  the  Cath- 
olics out  of  Ulster,  Munster  and  Leinster.  On  the  ist 
of  May,  1654,  all  Ireland  was  driven  across  the  Shan- 
non into  Connaught.  The  phrase  used  by  the  Crom- 
wellians  on  the  occasion  was  **  That  they  were  to  go 
to  hell  or  Connaught.'*  The  solemnity  of  the  historic 
occasion  which  brings  us  together  will  not  permit  me 
to  make  any  remarks  on  such  a  phrase  as  this  ;  how- 
ever, the  Irish  did  not  go  to  hell,  but  they  were  obliged 
to  go  to  Connaught.  Lest,  however,  they  might  have 
any  relief  come  to  them  by  sea,  lest  they  might  even 
enjoy  the  sight  of  the  fair  provinces  and  the  fair  land 
which  was  once  their  own,  he  made  a  law  that  no  Irish- 
man transplanted  into  Connaught  was  to  come  within 
four  miles  of  the  river  Shannon  on  the  one  side,  or  with- 
in four  miles  of  the  sea  on  the  other  side.  There  w^as  a 
cordon  of  English  soldiery  and  English  forts  drawn 
about  them,  and  there  they  were  to  live  in  the  bogs, 
in  the  fastnesses  and  in  the  wild  wastes  of  the  most 
desolate  region  in  Ireland  ;  there  they  were  to  pine  and 
expire  by  famine  and  by  every  form  of  suffering  that 
their  Heavenly  Father  might  permit  to  fall  upon 
them. 

Then  we  read  that  numbers  of  Englishmen  came 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  1 29 

over  to  Ireland,  and  I  don't  blame  them !  The  fair 
plains  of  Munster  were  there  desolate,  waiting  for 
them ;  the  splendid  valleys  of  Leinster,  with  their 
green  bosoms,  were  waiting  for  the  hand  to  put  in  the 
plough,  or  put  the  spade  into  the  bountiful  earth. 
They  were  waiting  for  an  owner;  so  the  English  came 
over,  and  they  were  very  glad  to  get  this  fair  land  of 
Ireland  for  almost  nothing.  Cromwell  settled  down 
his  troops  there.  Those  rough  Puritan  soldiers,  who 
came  to  Ireland  with  the  Bible  in  one  hand  and  the 
sword  in  the  other,  took  possession  of  the  country, 
and,  according  to  Mr.  Froude,  here  is  the  benefit  that 
resulted  from  Cromwell's  plantation.  In  fifteen  years 
they  changed  Ireland  into  a  garden  ;  all  the  bogs  were 
drained,  all  the  fields  were  fenced,  all  the  meadows 
were  mown,  all  the  fallow  fields  were  ploughed,  and 
the  country  was  smiling ;  never  was  there  anything  so 
fine  seen  before  in  Ireland,  as  the  state  of  things 
brought  about  by  Cromwell.  The  poor  Irish  peas- 
antry that  were  harassed  by  the  priests,  bishops,  and 
chieftains  now  enjoyed  comfort,  peace,  and  quiet,  as 
the  servants  of  the  new  English  owners  and  possess- 
ors of  the  soil.  Well !  I  wish  for  Ireland's  sake  that 
this  picture  were  true. 

And  this  fifteen  years  of  which  Mr.  Froude  speaks 
must  have  begun  in  1653  ;  because  it  was  only  in  Sep- 
tember of  that  year  that  the  English  Parliament  de- 
clared that  the  war  was  over  in  Ireland.  Up  to  that 
time  there  was  war  and  bloodshed.     Now  there  was 

peace.     Oh,   my  friends !  he   made  it   a  solitude ;  he 

6^ 


1 30  Lecture  III, 

made  it  a  desert,  and  called  it  peace.     But  was  it  a 
peaceful  desert  ? 

Oliver  Cromwell  died  in  1658,  and  now  I  want  to 
read  for  you  the  state  of  Ireland — Mr.  Froude's  **  Gar- 
den " — at  that  time.  Ireland,  in  the  language  of  Scrip- 
ture, now  laid  void  as  a  wilderness  ;  five-sixths  of  her 
people  had  perished — men,  women  and  children  were 
found  daily  perishing  in  ditches,  starved.  The  bodies 
of  many  wandering  orphans,  whose  fathers  had  em- 
barked for  Spain,  and  whose  mothers  had  died  of 
famine,  were  fed  upon  by  wolves.  In  the  years  1652 
and  '53,  the  plague  and  famine  had  swept  away  the 
inhabitants  of  whole  counties,  so  that  a  man  might 
travel  twenty  or  thirty  miles  and  not  see  a  living 
creature — man,  beast,  or  bird  ;  they  were  all  dead,  or 
had  quit  these  desolate  places.  The  troopers  would 
tell  stories  of  places  where  they  saw  smoke  ;  it  was  so 
rare  to  see  fire  or  smoke,  either  by  day  or  night.  In 
two  or  three  cabins  where  they  went,  they  found  none 
but  aged  men,  with  women  and  children,  and,  in 
the  words  of  the  prophet,  "  they  became  as  a  bottle  in 
the  smoke ;  "  their  skin  was  black,  like  an  oven,  be- 
cause of  the  terrible  famine ;  they  were  seen  to  cat 
filthy  carrion  out  of  the  ditch,  black  and  rotten,  and 
were  said  to  have  even  taken  corpses  out  of  the  graves 
to  eat.  A  party  of  horse,  hunting  for  Tories  on  a 
dark  night,  discovered  a  light  and  thought  it  was  a 
fire  which  the  Tories  used.  They  made  fires  in  those 
waste  countries  to  cook  their  food  and  warm  them- 
selves.    Drawing  near,  they  saw  it  was  a  ruined  cabin, 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  1 3 1 

and  posting  themselves  around  they  peeped  in  at  the 
windows,  and  there  they  saw  a  great  fire  of  wood,  and 
sitting  around  it  was  a  company  of  miserable  women 
and  children,  and  between  them  and  the  fire  a  dead 
corpse  lay  broiling,  which,  as  the  fire  roasted,  they  cut 
and  ate. 

A  year  before  Oliver  died,  in  1657,  we  find  a  member 
of  the  Irish  Parliament,  Major  Morgan,  declaring  that 
the  whole  land  of  Ireland  was  in  ruin,  for  beside  the 
cost  of  rebuilding  the  churches  and  court-houses  and 
market-houses,  which  were  very  heavy,  they  were  under 
a  very  heavy  charge  for  public  rewards  paid  for  the 
destruction  of  three  burdensome  beasts.  What  do 
you  think  the  three  beasts  were  ?  The  wolf,  the  priest, 
and  the  tory.  Now  let  me  explain  the  state  of  the 
'^  garden  "  to  you.  During  these  years  of  which  Mr. 
Froude  speaks  so  flatteringly,  there  was  actually  a 
grant  of  land  issued  within  nine  miles  of  the  City  of 
Dublin,  on  the  north  side,  that  is  to  say,  on  the  most 
cultivated  side  of  the  city,  under  conditions  of  keep- 
ing a  pack  of  wolf-hounds  to  hunt  and  destroy  the 
wolves.  The  wolves  increased  in  Ireland  from  the  deso- 
late state  of  the  country  ;  they  fed  on  the  dead  carcasses 
of  men  and  beasts  ;  they  increased  in  Ireland  so  that 
they  actually  came  famished  to  the  very  gates  of  Dub- 
lin, and  had  to  be  driven  away.  Does  this  look  like  a 
garden  ?  Is  this  the  kingdom  of  peace  and  plenty,  and 
comfort,  and  happiness  into  which  the  Irish  peasant 
had  come  at  last — where  everything  was  peace  and 
security,  where  the  bogs  were  all  drained  and  the  fields 


132  Lecture  III. 

beautifully  fenced  by  the  dear  Cromwellians  who  got 
possession  of  the  land  ?  When  the  relics  of  the  army 
were  embarking  for  Spain,  some  of  the  soldiers  had 
magnificent  Irish  wolf-dogs,  and  wished  to  take  their 
dogs  with  them.  They  were  stopped  at  the  port,  and  *» 
the  dogs  taken  from  them  for  the  purpose  of  hunting 
the  wolves  that  infested  the  country. 

This  is  my  first  answer  to  Mr.  Froude*s  assertion 
that  Ireland  was  a  garden.  The  second  beast  men- 
tioned by  Major  Morgan  in  the  Irish  House  of 
Commons  was — the  priest.  And  he  was  to  be  hunted 
down  like  the  wolf.  There  were  five  pounds  set  upon 
the  head  of  a  dog-wolf,  and  there  were  five  pounds  set 
on  the  head  of  a  priest,  and  ten  pounds  on  the  head 
of  a  bishop  or  a  Jesuit.  Mr.  Froude  says  that  these 
severe  laws  were  not  put  into  execution.  He  tells  us 
that  whilst  parliament  passed  these  laws  they  privately 
instructed  the  magistrates  not  to  execute  them.  So 
merciful,  so  tolerant,  is  the  genius  of  Mr.  Froude's 
Protestantism !  We  have  however  the  terrible  fact  be- 
fore us  that  the  English  Parliament  made  laws  com- 
manding the  magistrates,  under  heavy  fine  and  penal- 
ties, to  execute  these  laws.  We  find  the  country  filled 
with  informers,  we  find  priest-hunting  actually  re- 
duced to  a  profession  in  Ireland,  and  we  find  strange 
enough,  the  Portuguese  Jews  coming  all  the  way  from 
Portugal  in  order  to  hunt  priests  in  Ireland,  so  valua- 
ble was  the  privilege  regarded.  In  1698,  under  Wil- 
liam III.,  there  were  in  Ireland  four  hundred  and 
ninety-five  religious  and   eight  hundred   and  sevent\'- 


i  i 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  133 

two  secular  priests,  and  in  that  very  year,  out  of  four 
hundred  and  ninety-five  friars,  four  hundred  and  twen- 
ty-four were  shipped  off  from  Ireland  into  banishment 
and  into  slavery  ;  and  of  the  eight  hundred  and  odd 
secular  priests  that  remained  in  the  land,  not  one  of 
them  would  be  allowed  to  say  Mass  in  public  or  pri- 
vate, nor  indeed  remain  in  the  country  until  he  first 
took  the  oath  to  renounce  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope 
— of  Papal  abjuration — in  other  words,  until  he  be- 
came a  Protestant.  It  is  all  very  well  for  my  learned 
friend  to  tell  us  that  the  laws  were  not  put  into  execu- 
tion ;  but  what  is  the  meaning  of  such  entries  as 
these? — ^*  Five  pounds  on  the  certificate  of  Major 
Thomas  Stanley  " — *^  to  Thomas  Gregson,  Evan  Pow- 
ell and  Samuel  Ally,  being  three  soldiers  in  Colonel 
Abbott's  dragoons,  for  arresting  a  popish  priest  named 
Donogh  Haggerty,  taken  and  now  secured  in  the 
county  jail  of  Clonmel,  and  the  money,"  it  says,  ''  to 
be  equally  divided  between  them."  ''  To  Arthur 
Spunner,  Robert  Pearce  and  John  Bruen,  five  pounds, 
to  be  divided  equally  between  them,  for  their  good 
service  performed  in  apprehending  and  bringing  be- 
fore the  Right  Honorable  Lord  Chief  Justice  Pepys, 
on  the  2 1st  of  January,  one  popish  priest  named  Ed- 
win Dinn."  ^^  To  Lieutenant  Edward  Wood,  on  the 
certificate  of  Wm.  St.  George,  Esq.,  justice  of  the 
peace,  county  Cavan,  twenty-five  pounds,  for  five 
priests  and  friars  apprehended  by  him,  namely,  Thomas 
McKernan,  Turlough  O'Gowan,  Hugh  McGowan, 
Torlogh  Fitzsimmons,  who  on  examination  confessed 


134  Lecture  II L 

themselves  to  be  priests  and  friars/'  "  To  Sergeant 
Humphrey  Gibbs  " — a  nice  name — ^'  and  to  Corporal 
Thomas  Hill,  of  Colonel  Lee's  company,  ten  pounds, 
for  apprehending  two  popish  priests,  namely,  Maurice 
Prendergast  and  Edward  Fahy,  who  were  secured  in  the 
jail  of  Waterford  and  afterwards  were  transported  to 
foreign  parts." 

In  1655  a  general  arrest  of  priests  by  the  justices  of 
the  peace  was  ordered,  under  which,  in  April,  1656,  the 
prisons  in  every  part  of  Ireland  seem  to  have  been 
filled  to  overflowing.  On  the  3d  of  May,  the  govern- 
ors of  the  respective  precincts  were  ordered  to  send 
them  with  sufficient  guards  from  garrison  to  garrison 
to  Carrickfergus,  to  be  there  put  on  board  such  ship  as 
should  sail  with  the  first  opportunity  for  Barbadoes. 

The  third  burdensome  beast  was  *^  the  tory."  The 
great  aim  of  the  English  government  was  to  give  se- 
curity to  the  English  and  Scotch  planters.  For  this 
end,  40,000  of  the  fighting  men  of  Ireland  were  forced 
to  abandon  wives  and  children,  and  embark  for  Spain. 
The  deserted  families,  the  few  remaining  landed  pro- 
prietors with  their  tenants  and  their  wives,  sons  and 
daughters,  were  forced  into  Connaught.  The  aboriginal 
Irish  and  the  old  English  were  involved  in  a  common 
ruin,  and  we  read  how  Lord  Roche  of  Fermoy,  reduced 
in  his  old  age  to  beggary,  was  forced  with  his  daugh- 
ters to  go  on  foot  into  Connaught,  there  to  end  his 
days  in  misery  in  some  wretched  cabin,  whilst  his  an- 
cient inheritance  was  divided  between  a  troop  of  hun- 
gry, canting  hypocrites  of  Cromwell's  army.    The  land 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  135 

was  filled  with  such  unfortunates.  Inspired  by  such 
sights,  bands  of  desperate  men  formed  themselves  into 
bodies,  under  the  leadership  of  some  dispossessed  gen- 
tleman, who  had  retired  into  the  wilds  on  the  surrender 
of  the  army  to  which  he  belonged,  or  who  had  "  run 
out  *'  again  after  submitting,  and  resumed  arms  rather 
than  transplant  into  Connaught.  He  soon  found  as- 
sociates and  followers,  who,  being  beggared,  were  des- 
perate as  himself.  These  were  the  Tories,  and  the 
countn/  was  soon  infested  with  them.  The  great  re- 
gions left  waste  by  war  and  transplantations  gave 
them  scopes  for  harboring  in,  and  the  inadequate  num- 
bers of  the  forces  of  the  Commonwealth  to  fully  con- 
trol so  extensive  a  country  as  Ireland,  left  them  at 
liberty  to  plan  their  surprises.  If  Ireland  was  the  gar- 
den that  Mr.  Froude  describes  it  to  be,  how  comes  it 
to  pass,  that  no  Cromwellian  settler  throughout  the 
•length  and  breadth  of  the  land  dared  to  take  a  piece 
of  land  unless  there  was  a  garrison  of  soldiers  within 
his  immediate  neighborhood  ?  Nay,  even  under  the 
very  eyes  of  this  garrison  of  Timolin,  in  Meath,  the 
Tories  came  down,  robbed,  plundered,  set  fire  and  de- 
stroyed the  homesteads  of  certain  English  Cromwel- 
lian settlers,  for  which  all  the  people  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, of  Irish  names  and  of  Irish  parentage,  were  at 
once  taken  and  banished  out  of  the  country.  In  a 
word,  the  outlaws,  who  thirty  years  afterwards  ap- 
peared as  Rapparees,  who  are  described  to  us  in  such 
fearful  terms  by  the  English  historian,  continued  to 
infest  and  desolate  the  country,  and  we  find  accounts 


136  Lecture  II L 

of  them  in  the  State  Papers  down  to  the  latter  year  of 
the  reign  of  George  iV.  And  this  was  the  garden  ! 
This  was  the  land  of  peace,  of  comfort,  and  of  plenty  ! 
Now,  my  friends,  came  the  restoration  in  1659. 
Charles  II.  was  restored  to  the  throne  of  England.* 
Well,  the  Irish  had  been  fighting  for  his  father  ;  the 
Irish  had  bled  and  suffered  fighting  his  enemies,  and 
they  were  now  banished  into  Connaught  ;  they  naturally 
expected  that  when  the  rightful  heir  to  the  throne 
would  come  into  his  inheritance  they  would  be  recalled 
and  put  into  their  estates.  They  might  have  expected 
more.  They  might  have  expected  to  be  rewarded  by 
honors,  titles  and  wealth.  But  what  is  the  fact  ?  The 
fact  is,  that  Charles  II.,  at  the  restoration,  left  nearly 
the  whole  of  Ireland  in  the  hands  of  the  Cromwellian 
settlers,  and  by  an  act  of  settlement  secured  them  in 
their  estates,  leaving  the  property  and  the  wealth  of  the 
country  to  the  men  who  had  brought  his  father  to  the 
scaffold,  and  leaving  in  beggary,  destitution  and  in  ruin, 
the  brave  and  loyal  men  who  had  fought  for  him  and 
his  house.  At  first,  indeed,  there  was  a  Court  of 
Claims  opened ;  for,  remember,  in  England,  no  sooner 
had  Charles  come  to  the  throne  than  all  the  Cromwel- 
lian settlers  who  had  taken  the  property  of  the  English 
royalists  were  at  once  put  out,  and  the  English  lords 
and  gentlemen  got  back  their  property  and  estates. 
Not  so  in  Ireland.  The  Court  of  Claims  was  opened 
in  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  Charles.  As  soon  as 
it  was  perceived  that  the  Irish  Catholic  gentlemen  be- 
gan to  claim  their  property  they  shut  up  the  court  at 


Ireland  imder  Cromwell.  137 

once.  Three  thousand  of  these  claims  remained  unheard. 
As  Leland  says,  "'  The  people  of  Ireland  were  denied  the 
justice  which  is  given  to  the  commonest  criminal — the 
justice  of  having  a  fair  and  impartial  hearing."  Nu- 
gent, afterwards  Lord  Riverstone,  writes  at  this  time, 
"There  are  in  Ireland  to-day  5,000  men  who  never 
were  outlawed,  and  yet  who  have  been  put  out  of  their 
estates,  and  now  by  law  can  never  recover  their  es- 
tates again.'*  More  than  this ;  no  sooner  is  Charles 
seated  on  the  throne  of  England  than  the  Irish  Par- 
liament began  to  afflict  the  already  down-trodden 
people  of  Ireland  by  a  legislation  the  most  infamous 
that  can  be  imagined.  In  1673  the  English  Parlia- 
ment furiously  demanded  of  the  king  to  expel  all  the 
Catholic  bishops  and  priests  from  Ireland,  and  to 
prohibit  the  Papists  from  living  there  without  a 
license.  In  order  to  appease  the  Protestant  plun- 
derers, Charles,  against  his  conscience  and  against  his 
royal  gratitude,  obeyed  them.  Law  after  law  was 
passed  in  that  year  and  the  succeeding  years  abolish- 
ing and  destroying,  as  far  as  they  could,  every  vestige 
of  the  Catholic  religion  in  Ireland.  Mr.  Froude  here 
again  makes  the  astounding  assertion  that  when  the 
restoration  came,  the  Catholic  religion  and  the  Catholic 
people  came  back  with  it.  He  tells  us  that  the  Cath- 
olic Archbishop  of  Dublin  was  received  in  state  at 
Dublin  Castle.  What  are  the  facts?  The  Primate, 
Edmund  O'Riley,  was  banished.  Peter  Talbot,  the 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  although  he  was  in  a  dying 
state,  got  leave  but  a  short  time  before  to  return  to 


138  Lecture  III. 

Ireland  that  he  might  die  in  the  land  of  his  birth.  He 
was  arrested  in  Maynooth,  near  Dublin,  and  shut  up 
in  a  dungeon,  and  there  he  died  a  miserable  death 
of  martyrdom. 

We  find  at  this  very  time  a  reward  offered  of  ten  ' 
pounds  for  any  one  who  would  discover  an  officer  of  the 
army  attending  at  ''  Mass" — five  pounds  for  a  trooper, 
and  four  shillings  for  a  private  soldier,  who  was  dis- 
covered to  have  heard  ^'  Mass."  Oliver  Plunket,  the 
holy  primate  of  Armagh,  was  seized  by  Lord  Ormond, 
in  1679.  They  knew  that  they  could  not  condemn  him 
of  any  lawlessness  or  treason  in  Ireland,  and  they 
brought  him  over  to  London,  packed  an  English  jury 
to  try  him,  and  they  murdered  him  at  Tyburn,  on  the 
1st  of  July,  1681. 

It  is  true  these  penal  laws  were  somewhat  relaxed 
for  some  years  before  Charles  the  Second's  death. 
That  event  took  place  in  1685,  and  James  II.  came 
to  the  throne.  Three  years  afterwards  William  of 
Orange  landed  to  dispute  with  him  the  title  to  the 
crown  of  England.  Now,  although  James  II.  was 
a  Catholic  he  was  the  lawful  King  of  England,  and 
that  no  man  will  deny.  William  was  married  to 
James's  daughter  Mary,  and  William  came  to  Eng- 
land with  an  army  of  15,000  men  at  his  back;  he 
came  to  inquire  who  was  the  lawful  heir  to  the  crown. 
Well !  James  fled  to  France  as  soon  as  William  landed 
with  his  army.  Mr.  Froude  says  *^  that  he  abdicated 
when  he  fled  to  France."  I  deny  that  James  ab- 
dicated.    When  he  retired  for  a  time  from  the  face 


Ireland  under  CromzvelL  1 39 

of  his  enemy,  he  called  upon  his  subjects  both  in  Eng- 
land and  Ireland  to  stand  to  their  king  like  loyal  men. 
The  English  betrayed  him  ;  the  Irish  rose  up  again  for 
the  Stuart  king,  and  declared  they  were  loyal  men, 
and  they  would  stand  by  their  monarch.  James  came 
to  Ireland  in  1689,  and  summoned  a  parliament,  the 
same  parliament  which  Mr.  Froude  speaks  of  in  his 
lecture  as  a  persecuting  parliament ;  he  says  that  '*  they 
attainted  almost  every  single  Protestant  proprietor  in 
Ireland  by  name ;  that  they  did  this  lest  any  one 
should  escape  out  of  their  net."  Now,  what  are  the 
facts  of  that  parliament  of  1689?  The  very  first  thing 
that  they  declared,  although  they  had  suffered  more 
than  any  other  people  of  religious  persecution,  the 
very  first  law  they  made  was,  "  that  there  should  be 
no  more  religious  persecution  in  Ireland,  and  that  no 
man  from  that  day  forward  should  suffer  for  his  con- 
science or  his  faith."  It  is  perfectly  true,  that  they 
passed  a  bill  of  attainder,  but  they  passed  that  bill  not 
against  Protestants,  but  against  every  man  of  the  land 
that  was  in  arms  against  King  James — whom  they 
recognized  as  their  king — every  man  who  refused  to 
obey  him  and  his  government.  I  ask  you,  in  doing 
that,  did  they  not  do  their  duty?  Did  they  not  do 
precisely  what  is  always  done  in  time  of  rebellion? 
England  was  in  rebellion  against  James,  its  lawful 
king.  James  was  in  Ireland  and  there  was  an  Irish 
Parliament  with  James  at  its  head,  declaring  every 
man  was  an  outlaw  who  was  in  arms  against  him. 
Against   these    outlaws   the    Bill    of   Attainder    was 


140  Lecture  III, 

passed — this  persecuting  measure  of  which  Mr.  Froude 
speaks  when  he  mentions  this  parliament. 

William  came  to  Ireland  and  opened  the  campaign 
in  1690.  Mr.  Froude  says  in  his  description  of  this 
"  that  William  brought  with  him  a  motley  army,  ill-» 
disciplined  and  dissolute,  but  that  the  Irish  were  never 
so  strong,  never  were  so  well  drilled,  or  so  perfectly 
equipped  as  they  were  at  the  time.'*  Now,  here  are 
the  proofs  as  given  by  history :  **  William's  army  con- 
sisted at  first  of  45,000  veteran  soldiers,  a  motley 
assemblage,  it  is  true,  of  various  nationalities,  but  well 
trained  and  most  of  them  veteran  troops ;  all  were 
well  armed  and  equipped  in  the  best  possible  manner. 
They  were  supplied  with  everything  requisite  for  war 
and  more  especially  with  a  numerous  train  of  artillery. 
The  Irish  army  of  James  numbered  23,000  imperfectly 
disciplined  troops,  wanting  in  nearly  everything  neces- 
sary for  a  campaign."  This  we  have  on  the  evidence 
of  the  Duke  of  Berwick ;  he  was  serving  in  the  army 
at  the  time.  At  the  Battle  of  the  Boyne,  Mr.  Froude 
says  ^'  that  the  Irish  did  not  make  even  a  creditable 
stand,"  and  I  regret,  bitterly  regret,  that  the  learned 
gentleman  should  have  forgotten  himself  so  far  as  to 
have  ventured  in  the  faintest  whisper  to  impute  a 
want  of  courage  to  the  soldiers  of  the  Irish  race.  At 
the  Battle  of  the  Boyne,  James  and  his  army  were  on 
the  south  bank  of  the  river.  William  with  his  army 
advanced  down  from  the  north.  William's  muster-roll 
of  the  army  on  that  morning  shows  the  figures  of 
51,000   men.     James's  army  had    not  increased   from 


Ireland  under  CrofnwelL  141 

the  original  23,000.  William  was  a  lion-hearted  and 
brave  soldier.  James,  I  regret  to  say,  had  forgotten 
the  tradition  of  that  ancient  courage  and  gallantry 
which  distinguished  him  as  Duke  of  York — when  he 
was  Lord  High  Admiral  of  England.  The  one  had 
the  heart  of  a  lion,  the  other  that  of  a  stag.  The  Irish 
fixed  upon  James  an  opprobrious  name  in  the  Irish 
language,  which  on  an  occasion  like  this  I  will  not 
permit  myself  to  repeat.  On  the  morning  of  the 
Battle  of  the  Boyne,  William  detached  10,000  men, 
who  went  up  the  stream  some  miles  to  ford  it  near 
the  hill  of  Slane.  James  could  scarcely  be  prevailed 
upon  to  send  one  or  two  regiments  to  oppose  the 
10,000  men  with  their  artillery  headed  by  Count 
Schombers.  The  evening  before  the  battle  James 
sent  away  six  guns  towards  Dublin.  How  many  do 
you  think  remained  ?  Only  six  pieces  of  artillery 
remained  with  the  Irish  army  on  that  day.  How 
many  were  opposed  to  them?  We  have  it  on 
historic  record  that  William  brought  into  the  field 
on  the  day  of  the  Battle  of  the  Boyne,  fifty  heavy 
pieces  of  artillery,  and  four  mortars.  Then  he 
advanced  and  crossed  the  river.  These  Irish  troops, 
of  which  Mr.  Froude  says  that  they  did  not  make 
even  a  respectable  stand,  were  out-generaled  that 
day ;  they  had  at  their  head  a  timorous  king  who  had 
already  sent  away  his  artillery  and  his  baggage  ;  who 
had  already  drawn  around  his  person,  two  miles  away, 
all  the  best  disciplined  of  the  French  soldiers,  and  only 
the  raw  levies — all  the  young  Irishmen — were  opposed 


142  Lecture  III, 

to  the  fifty-one  thousand  of  the  bravest  men  of  Europe. 
Well !  they  crossed  the  Boyne,  and  the  Duke  of  Ber- 
wick is  my  authority  for  stating  this.  He  says,  "  With 
admirable  courage  and  gallantry  the  Irish  troops 
charged  the  English  ten  times  after  they  had  crossed* 
the  river."  Ten  times !  these  poor  young  fellows, 
with  no  generals,  charged  upon  the  English  with  a 
dash  as  brave  as  that  with  which  O'Brien,  Lord  Clare, 
swept  down  upon  them  at  Fontenoy.  Ten  distinct 
times  did  they  dash  against  the  terrible  lines  of 
William's  veterans,  and  then  they  retreated  like  an  army 
in  perfect  order  at  the  command  of  their  superior  offi- 
cers. The  Irish,  according  to  the  Duke  of  Berwick,  lost 
one  thousand  men  in  killed  and  wounded.  The  Eng- 
lish, according  to  Story,  who  was  present,  lost  four  hun- 
dred men  killed,  which  would  make,  according  to  the 
usual  proportion,  a  total  loss  of  twelve  per  cent,  killed 
and  wounded.  Thus  it  appears  that  the  Irish  gave 
more  than  they  got.  Now  came  the  first  siege  of 
Athlone.  That  same  year,  1690,  the  English  army  ad- 
vanced on  the  line  of  the  Shannon.  ^^  At  Athlone," 
Mr.  Froude  says,  ''  the  Irish  deserted  posts  which  they 
easily  might  have  made  impregnable."  Now,  what 
are  the  facts  ?  At  the  first  siege  Col.  Richard  Grace 
beat  back  the  English  under  Douglas,  although  the 
latter  had  an  army  of  twelve  thousand  men,  twelve 
cannon  and  two  mortars. 

Then  William  advanced  upon  Limerick  ;  he  brought 
with  him  the  whole  strength  of  his  army.  He  had,  when 
he  went  to  Limerick,  thirty-eight  thousand  effective  men 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  143 

in  regular  line  of  battle.  In  the  town  of  Limerick 
there  was  the  army  of  James,  made  up  partly  of  Irish 
under  the  immortal  Sarsfield,  and  partly  of  French 
under  a  general  named  Lauzun.  The  whole  force 
amounted  to  about  twenty  thousand  infantry  only,  one- 
half  of  which  was  armed,  and  three  thousand  five 
hundred  cavalry  encamped  five  miles  outside  the  city. 
When  the  great  English  army  with  its  king  was  ap- 
proaching the  city  the  French  general,  seeing  it  so  de- 
fenseless, actually  left  the  town  with  the  troops,  swear- 
ing that  ^^  the  town  could  be  taken  with  roasted  ap- 
ples." Sarsfield  with  the  Irish  remained.  William 
advanced  before  the  town  and  battered  it  with  his 
cannons  until  he  made  a  breach  thirty-six  feet  wide, 
and  then  assaulted  it  with  twelve  thousand  of  his  picked 
men.  They  actually  entered  the  town,  and  were 
beaten  out  of  the  walls  of  Limerick  ;  beaten  back 
over  the  broken  ruins.  The  very  women  of  Limerick 
entered  into  the  contest,  fighting  side  by  side  with 
their  brothers,  husbands  and  fathers.  After  four  hours, 
however,  of  fighting,  William  Prince  of  Orange  with- 
drew from  the  assault  and  left  two  thousand  men  in  the 
breaches  of  Limerick ;  two  thousand  men  and  one 
hundred  and  fifty-eight  officers  were  destroyed  in  that 
assault.  The  next  day  King  William  sent  a  message  to 
the  city  asking  them  for  leave  to  bury  his  dead.  And 
the  answer  he  got  was — *^  Begone  !  We  will  give  you 
no  leave.  Take  yourself  away,  and  we  will  bury  your 
dead."  In  the  second  siege  of  Athlone  of  the  follow- 
ing year  the  English   town  was  occupied  by  Colonel 


144  Lecture  III, 

Fitzgerald.  St.  Ruth,  with  the  Irish  army,  lay  two 
miles  away  on  the  other  side  of  the  Shannon.  The 
English  town  was  assailed  by  eight  thousand  men 
against  the  four  hundred  commanded  by  Fitzgerald. 
The  Irish  troops  who  remained  under  Fitzgerald^ 
stopped  the  whole  English  army,  and  fought  until  out 
of  the  four  hundred  men  not  two  hundred  were  left 
before  they  crossed  the  bridge  that  goes  to  the  other 
portion  of  the  town.  Before  they  crossed  the  bridge 
they  broke  one  of  the  arches.  The  English  army  with 
all  their  artillery  battered  that  Irish  town  until  they 
did  not  leave  a  house  or  stone  upon  stone  in  it. 
After  the  Irish  troops  retired,  the  English  attempted 
to  plank  over  the  broken  arch  of  the  bridge.  They 
had  their  guns  fixed  to  sweep  the  bridge.  Eleven 
Irish  soldiers  came  out  to  take  the  planks  off;  and  out 
of  the  eleven,  such  was  the  fierce,  sweeping  fire  of 
the  English  artillery,  only  two  escaped.  Again  the 
English  advanced  to  the  attack,  and  again  eleven 
other  Irish  sergeants  of  the  various  regiments  came 
out,  in  the  face  of  the  whole  English  army,  and  of 
their  artillery,  and  deliberately,  under  their  very  eyes, 
destroyed  the  wooden  bridge  they  were  making  over 
the  Shannon.  And  when  the  town  was  taken  at  last, 
it  was  a  mere  heap  of  ruins.  It  was  taken  not  from 
any  want  of  bravery  on  the  part  of  the  Irish  soldiers, 
but  through  the  folly  and  misguided  conduct  of  the 
PVench  general,  St.  Ruth,  who  refused  to  succor  them. 
Of  Aughrim  I  will  not  speak ;  because,  my  friends, 
Mr.  Froude  himself  acknowledges  that  at  Aughrim  the 


Ireland  under  CromwelL  145 

Irish  soldiers  fought  bravely.  And  because  I  have  for 
this  English  gentleman,  really  and  truly,  a  sincere  re- 
gard and  esteem,  I  would  ask  him  to  do  what  I  myself 
would  do  if  I  was  in  his  position  ;  I  would  ask  him  to 
reconsider  the  word  in  which  he  seems  to  imply  a 
taint  of  cowardice  on  Irishmen  at  home  and  abroad, 
and  in  the  name  of  God  to  take  that  word  back  ;  be- 
cause that  word  will  remain  and  breed  bad  blood  for 
many  a  day.  In  1691,  the  second  siege  of  Limerick 
began,  and  so  gallant  was  the  resistance,  so  brave  the 
defense,  that  William  of  Orange,  who  was  a  brave 
man — and  if  left  to  himself,  would  have  been  a  toler- 
ant and  mild  man — who  bore  no  ill-will  to  the  Irish, 
being  a  stranger  to  them,  and  only  in  Ireland  simply 
to  further  the  service  of  war — who  saw  in  the  Irish  a 
high-spirited  and  brave  people,  was  obliged  to  come 
to  terms,  and  the  city  capitulated.  In  the  capitula- 
tion, Sarsfield  signed  for  the  Irish  ;  they  received  hon- 
orable terms  from  the  royalty  of  England.  By  those 
very  articles,  as  citizens  and  as  Catholics,  their  rights 
were  recognized  to  every  liberty  of  conscience  and  of 
religion.  Scarcely  was  the  treaty  of  Limerick  signed 
by  the  Lords  Justices,  than  a  French  fleet  entered  the 
Shannon.  A  French  fleet  of  eighteen  ships  of  the 
line,  with  twenty  transports,  three  thousand  men, 
two  hundred  officers,  and,  above  all,  ten  thousand 
stand  of  arms,  with  clothing  and  provisions.  They 
came!  but  they  came  too  late  for  Sarsfield  and 
for  Ireland,  Sarsfield  had  surrendered.  He  might 
have  taken  back   that   word ;    he    might    have    bro- 

7 


146  Lecture  III, 

ken  these  articles,  with  the  French  forces  and  fleet 
at  his  back.  But  Sarsfield,  to  his  honor,  was  an 
Irishman — and  he  was  far  too  honorable  a  man  to  vio- 
late the  treaty  of  Limerick  which  he  had  signed  with 
his  gallant  hand.  Would  to  God  that  the  honor  of 
Sarsfield  had  also  been  in  the  hearts  of  the  other  men 
who,  on  the  part  of  England,  signed  that  treaty  ! 
No !  the  Lords  Justices  went  back  to  Dublin  with 
the  treaty  signed,  with  the  honor  of  the  royalty  of 
England  committed  to  it,  and  the  next  Sunday  after 
they  arrived  in  Dublin  they  went  to  Christ  Church 
Cathedral  to  perform  their  devotions,  and  the  sermon 
was  preached  by  Dopping,  the  Lord  Bishop  of  Meath. 
Now,  I  am  more  or  less  a  professional  preacher,  and  I 
have  a  certain  esprit  de  corps,  I  have  the  feeling  for 
preachers  that  every  man  has  for  his  own  profession.  I 
like  to  see  them  uphold  the  honor  of  their  profession. 
What  do  you  think  was  the  sermon  that  Dopping 
preached  ?  He  preached — and  I  am  ashamed  to  say  it, 
although  it  is  true  he  was  a  Protestant  Bishop — "'  on 
the  sin  of  and  the  sinfulness  of  keeping  your  oath  or 
faith  with  a  Papist."  Immediately  after  the  articles  of 
Limerick  were  signed,  we  have  the  testimony  of  Har- 
ris, the  historian  of  William  III.,  who  says:  ''The 
justices  of  the  peace  and  sheriffs  and  other  magistrates, 
presuming  on  their  power  in  the  country,  did  in  an 
illegal  manner  dispossess  several  of  their  majesty's  sub- 
jects, not  only  of  their  goods  and  chattels,  but  of  their 
lands  and  tenements,  to  the  great  disturbance  of  the 
peace  of  the  kingdom,  and  to  the  reproach  of  the  law 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  147 

and  their  majesty's  government."  We  find  those 
Lords  Justices  themselves  complaining,  in  a  letter  of 
the  19th  November,  six  weeks  after  the  treaty  was 
signed,  that  their  lordships  had  received  complaints 
from  all  parts  of  the  land  of  the  ill-treatment  of  the 
people  who  had  submitted  to  their  majesty's  protec- 
tion and  were  included  in  the  articles  of  that  treaty. 
And  the  consequence  was,  that  actually  the  men  who 
had  previously  refused  to  embark  with  Sarsfield  to  go 
to  Spain  and  France  with  him,  came  back  in  thousands, 
back  to  the  English  Government  to  obtain  leave  to  join 
Sarsfield  in  exile  ;  to  let  them  go  to  fight  the  battles 
of  France,  Spain,  and  Austria,  because  there  was  no 
room  in  Ireland  for  a  Catholic  Irishman  nor  even  for  an 
honest  man. 

Now  began  a  time  the  most  lamentable  for  Ireland. 
William  himself  was  anxious  to  keep  his  royal  word, 
and  would  have  kept  it  if  they  had  allowed  him.  But 
the  same  pressure  was  put  upon  him  as  was  brought  to 
bear  on  Charles  I.  The  Irish  Protestant  faction  would 
not  allow  the  Catholics  to  live  m  the  land.  The  Eng- 
lish Parliament  would  not  allow  a  Catholic  to  breathe 
in  the  land ;  and  William  was  coerced  to  comply  with 
their  request,  and  a  series  of  the  most  terrible  laws 
that  can  be  imagined  were  passed  in  the  very  teeth  of 
the  articles  signed  in  Limerick.  Three  years  after  the 
siege  of  Limerick,  the  parliament  were  urged  by  the 
grievances  of  the  Protestants  of  Ireland — the  poor  fel- 
lows complained  *'  that  the  Catholics  would  not  g\N^ 
them  leave  to  live  !  "     They  poured  in  their  petitions 


148  Lecture  III, 

to  the  House  of  Commons.  We  find  a  petition  from 
the  Protestant  mayor  and  aldermen  of  the  city  of  Lim- 
erick, complaining,  in  their  own  words,  "  that  they 
were  greatly  damaged  in  their  trade  by  the  great  num- 
ber of  Papists  residing  there  ;"  also  praying  to  be  re-*' 
lieved  of  them.  We  find  the  coal-porters  of  Dublin 
sending  in  a  petition  to  parliament,  and  it  was  as  fol- 
lows :  A  petition  of  one  Edward  Sprag — another  nice 
name  ! — and  others,  in  behalf  of  themselves  and  other 
Protestant  porters  in  and  about  the  city  of  Dublin, 
complaining  that  one  Darby  Ryan,  a  Papist,  actually 
employed  porters  of  his  own  religion,  and  the  petition 
was  entertained  by  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  and 
sent  to  the  ^^  Committee  on  Grievances."  The  parlia- 
ment passed  an  act  for  the  better  securing  of  the  gov- 
ernment against  the  Papists  ;  and  the  first  act  of  that 
parliament  was  that  no  Catholic  in  Ireland  was  to  be 
allowed  to  have  a  gun,  pistol,  or  sword  of  any  kind,  or 
weapon  of  offense  or  defense.  The  consequence  of 
disobeying  this  law  was  banishment  or  fine  and  impris- 
onment, at  the  discretion  of  the  court,  or  else  the  pil- 
lory, or  whipping.  Now,  here  are  the  reflections  of 
Mr.  Mitchel :  "  It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  minute 
and  curious  tyranny  to  which  this  statute  gave  rise  in 
every  parish  of  the  island  ;  especially  in  districts  where 
there  was  an  armed  yeomanry,  exclusively  Protestant, 
it  fared  ill  with  any  Catholic  who  fell  for  any  reason 
under  the  displeasure  of  his  formidable  neighbors.  Any 
pretext  was  sufficient  for  pointing  him  out  to  suspicion. 
Any  neighboring  magistrate   might  visit   him   at  any 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  149 

hour  of  the  night,  and  search  his  bed  for  arms.  No 
Papist  was  safe  from  suspicion  who  had  any  money  to 
pay  in  fines,  and  woe  to  the  Papist  who  had  a  hand- 
some daughter.'* 

The  second  act  that  they  passed  was  for  the  purpose 
of  brutalizing  the  Irish  CathoHc  people  by  ignorance. 
They  made  a  law  that  no  Catholic  was  to  send  his  son 
to  a  Catholic  school  or  to  a  Catholic  teacher.  No 
Catholic  child  was  to  be  sent  out  of  Ireland  to  receive 
a  Catholic  education  elsewhere ;  or  if  any  parent  01 
guardian  was  found  sending  money,  clothing  or  any 
thing  else  to  a  Catholic  child  in  a  Catholic  school,  there 
was  forfeiture,  imprisonment,  and  fine  ;  disabilities  of 
various  kinds,  but  above  all  the  old  and  favorite  punish- 
ment, forfeiture  of  estate. 

The  third  act  passed  was :  "  That  all  Popish  arch- 
bishops, bishops,  vicars-general,  Jesuits,  monks,  friars, 
or  other  regular  Popish  clergy  or  Papists,  exercising 
any  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  were  ordered  to  depart 
out  of  the  kingdom  before  the  ist  of  May,  1698.  If 
any  remained  after  that  day,  or  if  any  returned,  the  de- 
linquents were  to  be  transported  ;  if  they  returned  again, 
they  were  guilty  of  high  treason,  to  suffer  accordingly  " 
— that  is  to  say :  to  be  hanged,  drawn  and  quartered. 

You  would  imagine  now,  at  least,  that  the  Papists 
were  down  as  far  as  they  could  be  put  down.  You 
would  imagine  now,  at  least,  that  the  Protestant  reli- 
gion was  safe  in  Ireland.  Ah !  my  friends,  William 
was  succeeded  by  his  sister-in-law.  Queen  Anne.  She 
was  a  Stuart — the  daughter  of  James  II.,  for  whom 


I  so  Lecture  III. 

Ireland  shed  its  blood ;  the  granddaughter  of  Charles 
L,  for  whom  Ireland  had  shed  its  blood ;  and  one 
would  think  she  would  have  some  heart — some  feel- 
ing for  that  people.     Here  is  the  way  she  showed  it : 

A  parliament  under  this  good  queen  passed  a  law  •• 
to  further  prevent  the  growth  of  Popery.  What  a 
strange  plant  this  Popery  must  be!  They  had  been 
chopping  it  up,  and  cutting  it  down,  tramping  it  under 
foot,  blowing  it  up  with  gunpowder,  digging  out  the 
roots,  as  if  they  thought  that  would  extirpate  it.  Yet, 
year  after  year,  a  parliament  comes  in  and  says  :  "  We 
must  stop  the  growth  of  Popery ;  *'  and  passed  laws  to 
stop  the  growth  of  Popery.  By  the  first  Act  of  this 
parliament  of  good  Queen  Anne,  it  was  enacted,  that 
if  a  son  of  a  Papist  should  ever  become  Protestant,  his 
father  might  not  sell,  or  mortgage  his  estate,  or  dis- 
pose of  it,  or  any  portion  of  it,  by  sale.  The  Protest- 
ant son  became  master  of  his  father's  estate ;  or  if 
any  child,  no  matter  how  young,  conformed  to  the 
Protestant  religion,  it  reduced  his  father  at  once  to  be 
a  tenant  for  life,  and  the  child  was  to  be  taken  from 
the  father,  and  placed  under  the  guardianship  of  some 
Protestant  relative.  They  made  a  Papist  incapable 
of  purchasing  any  landed  estates,  or  rents,  or  profits 
arising  out  of  land,  or  hold  any  lease  of  lives,  or  any 
other  lease  exceeding  thirty-one  years. 

Finally,  they  capped  the  climax,  by  passing  a  law, 
that  no  Papist  or  Catholic  was  to  have  a  horse  worth 
more  than  five  pounds.  If  he  had  one  worth  five  thou- 
sand pounds,  and  a  Protestant  came  up  to  offer  him 


Ireland  under  Cromwell,  151 

five  pounds  for  the  horse,  whether  he  took  the  offered 
money  or  not,  the  Protestant  was  at  Hberty  to  seize 
the  CathoHc's  property.  In  a  word,  every  enactment 
that  could  degrade,  viHfy,  or  annihilate  the  people,  was 
the  order  of  the  day,  and  the  business  of  parliament, 
from  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  down  to  the  days  when 
America  burst  her  chains,  and  before  her  terrible  pres- 
ence England  grew  afraid  of  her  life,  and  began  to  re- 
lax her  penal  laws.  I  feel,  my  friends,  that  I  have  de- 
tained you  too  long,  upon  a  subject,  which,  indeed,  was 
dreary  and  desolate  ground  to  travel  over.  I  for  my 
part  never  would  have  invited  the  citizens  of  America, 
or  my  fellow-countrymen,  to  enter  upon  such  a  desolate 
waste  ;  to  renew  in  my  heart  and  yours  so  deep  and  ter- 
rible a  sore,  if  Mr.  Froude  had  not  compelled  me  to  lift 
the  veil,  and  to  show  you  the  treatment  our  fathers  re- 
ceived at  the  hands  of  England.  I  do  it,  not  at  all  to 
excite  national  animosity — not  at  all  to  stir  up  bad 
blood.  I  am  one  of  those  most  willing  to  say,  "'  Let 
bygones  be  bygones;  let  the  dead  bury  their  dead.'* 
But  if  any  man — I  care  not  who  he  be — how  great  his 
reputation — how  grand  his  name,  in  any  walk  or  line 
of  science  or  history ;  if  any  man  dare  to  come — as 
long  as  I  live — to  say  that  England's  treatment  of 
Ireland  was  just,  and  was  necessary — was  such  as  can 
receive  the  verdict  of  an  honest  man,  or  of  a  nation  or 
a  people — if  any  man  dare  say  that,  either  at  home  or 
abroad,  Irishmen  have  ever  shown  the  white  feather  in 
the  hour  of  danger — if  I  was  on  my  death-bed,  I  would 
rise  to  contradict  him. 


LECTURE  IV. 

GRATTAN    AND    THE  VOLUN- 
TEERS. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — I  have  perceived  in 
the  public  papers  that  Mr.  Froude  seems  to  be  some- 
what irritated  by  remarks  that  have  been  made  as  to 
his  accuracy  as  a  historian.  Lest  any  word  of  mine 
might  hurt  in  the  least  degree  the  just  susceptibilities 
of  an  honorable  man,  I  beg  beforehand  to  say  that 
nothing  was  further  from  my  thoughts  than  the  slight- 
est word,  either  of  personality  or  disrespect  for  one 
who  has  won  for  himself  so  high  a  name  as  an  Eng- 
lish historian.  And  therefore  I  sincerely  hope,  that  it 
is  not  any  word  which  may  have  fallen  from  me,  even 
in  the  heat  of  our  amicable  controversy,  that  can  have 
given  the  least  offense  to  that  gentleman.  Just  as  I 
would  expect  to  receive  from  him,  or  from  any  other 
learned  and  educated  man,  the  treatment  which  one 
gentleman  is  supposed  to  show  to  another,  so  do  I  also 
wish  to  give  to  him  that  treatment. 


Graft  an  and  the  Volunteers,  •    153 

And  now,  my  friends,  we  come  to  the  matter  in  hand. 
Last  evening  I  had  to  traverse  a  great  portion  of  my 
country's  history  in  reviewing  the  statements  of  the  Eng- 
lish historian,  and  I  was  obliged  to  leave  almost  un- 
touched one  portion  of  the  sad  story — namely,  the  period 
which  covers  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne.  This  estima- 
ble lady,  of  whom  history  records  the  unwomanly  vice 
of  an  overfondness  for  eating,  came  to  the  English 
throne  on  the  demise  of  William  of  Orange  in  1702, 
and  on  that  throne  she  sat  until  17 14.  As  I  before  re- 
marked, it  was  perhaps  natural  that  the  Irish  people 
— the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  trodden  into  the  very  dust 
— that  they  would  have  expected  some  quarter  from 
the  daughter  of  the  man  for  whom  they  had  shed 
their  blood,  and  from  the  granddaughter  of  the  other 
Stuart  king  for  whom  they  had  fought  with  so  much 
bravery  in  1649.  The  return  that  the  Irish  people  got 
from  this  good  lady  was  quite  of  another  kind  from 
what  they  might  have  expected.  Not  content  with 
the  atrocious  laws  that  had  been  already  enacted 
against  the  Catholics  of  Ireland ;  not  content  with 
the  flagrant  breach  of  the  articles  of  Limerick,  of 
which  her  royal  brother-in-law  William  was  guilty,  no 
sooner  does  Anne  come  to  the  throne  and  send 
the  Duke  of  Ormond  as  Lord  Lieutenant  to  Ireland, 
than  the  English  ascendency,  that  is  to  say  the 
parliament  faction  in  Ireland,  got  upon  their  knees 
to  the  new  Lord  Lieutenant  to  beg  of  him,  for 
the  sake  of  the  Lord,  to  save  them  from  these  des- 
perate  Roman   Catholics.      Great   God!      A   people 


154  Lecture  IV. 

robbed,  persecuted,  and  slain,  until  only  a  miserable 
remnant  of  them  weie  left,  without  a  voice  in  the 
nation's  councils,  without  a  vote  even  at  the  hum- 
blest board  that  sat  to  transact  the  meanest  paro- 
chial business — these  were  the  men  against  whom 
the  strong  Protestant  ascendency  of  Ireland  made 
their  complaint  in  1703.  And  so  well  were  these  com- 
plaints heard,  my  friends,  that  we  find  edict  after  edict 
going  out,  declaring  that  no  Papist  shall  be  allowed 
to  inherit  or  possess  land,  or  to  buy  land,  or  to  have  it 
even  under  a  lease ;  declaring  that  if  a  Catholic  child 
wished  to  become  Protestant,  that  instantly  that  child 
became  the  owner  and  the  master  of  his  father's  es- 
tate, and  his  father  remained  only  his  pensioner  or  ten- 
ant for  life  upon  the  bounty  of  his  own  apostate  son  ; 
declaring  that  if  a  child,  no  matter  how  young,  even 
an  infant,  conformed  and  became  Protestant,  that  mo- 
ment that  child  was  to  be  removed  from  the  guardian- 
ship and  custody  of  the  father  and  was  to  be  handed 
over  to  some  Protestant  relation.  Every  enactment 
that  the  misguided  ingenuity  of  the  tyrannical  mind 
of  man  could  suggest  was  adopted  and  put  in  force. 
*'  One  might  indeed  suppose,"  says  Mr.  Mitchell,  "  that 
Popery  had  been  already  sufficiently  discouraged,  see- 
ing that  the  bishops  and  regular  clergy  had  been  ban- 
ished, that  Catholics  were  excluded  by  law  from  all 
honorable  or  lucrative  employments,  carefully  disarmed, 
and  plundered  of  almost  every  acre  of  their  ancient  in- 
heritance. But  enough  had  not  yet  been  done  to  make 
the    Protestant     interest     feel   secure,"    consequently 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers,  155 

other  laws  were  made,  and  clauses  were  added  by 
this  good  Queen  Anne  declaring  that  '*  no  papist  or 
Catholic  could  live  in  a  walled  town/*  especially  in  the 
towns  of  Limerick  or  Galway  ;  that  no  Catholic  could 
even  enter  the  suburbs  of  the  town.  They  were  obliged 
to  remain  outside  of  the  town  as  if  they  were  lepers, 
whose  presence  would  contaminate  and  degrade  their 
sleek  and  pampered  Protestant  fellow-citizens  in  the 
land.  The  persecution  went  on.  In  171 1  we  find  them 
enacting  new  laws,  and  later  on,  to  the  very  last  day 
of  Queen  Anne's  reign,  we  find  them  enacting  their 
laws,  hounding  on  the  magistrates  and  the  police  of 
the  country  and  the  informers,  offering  them  bribes 
and  premiums  to  execute  these  atrocious  laws,  and  to 
hunt  the  Catholic  people  and  the  Catholic  priests  of 
Ireland  as  if  they  were  fierce,  untamable  wolves.  And, 
my  friends,  Mr.  Froude  justifies  all  this  on  two 
grounds.  Not  a  single  word  has  he  of  compassion  for 
the  people  who  were  thus  treated  ;  not  a  single  word 
has  he  of  manly  protest  against  the  shedding  of  that 
people's  blood  by  unjust  persecution — as  well  as  their 
robbery  by  legal  enactments.  But  he  says  there  were 
two  reasons  which,  in  his  mind,  seemed  to  justify  the 
atrocious  action  of  the  English  government.  The 
first  of  these  was  that,  after  all,  these  laws  were  only 
retaliation  upon  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  for  the  dread- 
ful persecutions  that  were  suffered  by  the  Huguenots, 
or  Protestants,  of  France ;  and  he  says  that  the  Prot- 
estants of  Ireland  were  only  following  the  example  of 
King  Louis  XIV.,  who  revoked  the  Edict  of  Nantes. 


156  Lecture  IV, 

I  could  not  explain  this  matter  better  than  by  quoting 
the  words  of  the  illustrious  Irishman  who  is  in  the 
midst  of  us,  John  Mitchel. 

^*  The  recall  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  which  edict  had 
secured  toleration  for  Protestantism  in  France,  is 
bitterly  dwelt  upon  by  English  writers  as  the  heaviest 
reproach  which  weighs  on  the  memory  of  King  Louis 
XIV.  The  recall  of  the  edict  had  taken  place  in 
1685,  only  a  few  years  before  the  passage  of  this  Irish 
*Act  to  prevent  the  further  growth  of  Popery/ 
The  differences  between  the  two  transactions  are 
mainly  these  two  :  firsts  that  the  French  Protestants 
had  not  been  guaranteed  their  civil  and  religious 
rights  by  any  treaty,  as  the  Irish  Catholics  thought 
they  held  theirs,  by  the  Treaty  of  Limerick ;  second^ 
that  the  penalties  denounced  against  French  Protest- 
ants by  the  recalling  edict  bore  entirely  upon  their 
religious  service  itself,  and  were  truly  intended  to 
induce  and  force  the  Huguenots  to  become  Catholics  ; 
there  being  no  confiscations  except  in  cases  of  relapse, 
and  in  cases  of  quitting  the  kingdom  ;  but  there  was 
nothing  of  all  the  complicated  machinery  above  de- 
scribed, for  beggaring  one  portion  of  the  population, 
and  giving  its  spoils  to  the  other  part.  We  may  add, 
that  the  penalties  and  disabilities  in  France  lasted  a 
much  shorter  time  than  in  Ireland  ;  and  that  French 
Protestants  were  restored  to  perfect  civil  and  religious 
equality  with  their  countrymen,  in  every  respect,  forty 
years  before  the  *  Catholic  Relief  Act  *  purported   to 


Graft  an  and  the  Volunteers,  157 

emancipate  the  Irish  Catholics,  who  are  not,  indeed, 
emancipated  yet.'* 

Side  by  side  with  this  foolish  act  of  Louis  XIV.  of 
France,  we  find  the  Irish  people  ruined,  beggared,  per- 
secuted, and  hunted  to  the  death,  and  the  English  his- 
torian comes  and  says,  ^^  Oh,  we  were  only  serving  you 
as  your  people  and  your  own  fellow-religionists  m 
France  were  serving  us."  The  other  reason  which 
Mr.  Froude  gives  to  justify  these  persecutions  was 
that  the  Irish  Catholics  were  in  favor  of  the  Pretender 
— that  is  to  say,  of  the  son  of  James  II.,  and  conse- 
quently were  hostile  to  the  government.  Now,  to 
that  statement  I  can  give,  I  think,  a  most  emphatic 
denial.  The  Irish  Catholics  had  had  quite  enough  of 
the  Stuarts ;  they  had  shed  quite  enough  of  their 
blood  for  that  treacherous  and  shameless  race ;  they 
had  no  interest  whatever  in  the  succession,  nor  cared 
they  one  iota  whether  the  Elector  of  Hanover  or  the 
son  of  James  Stuart  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  Eng- 
land. For  well  they  knew  whether  it  was  Hanoverian 
or  Stuart  that  ruled  in  England,  the  faction  at  home  in 
Ireland  and  the  prejudices  of  the  EnglisTi  people  would 
make  him,  whoever  he  was,  a  tyrant  over  them  and 
over  their  nation.  And  thus  the  persecution  went  on,  and 
law  after  law  was  passed  to  make  perfect  the  beggary 
and  the  ruin  of  the  Irish  people,  until  at  length  Ireland 
was  reduced  to  such  a  state  of  misery  that  the  very 
name  of  Irishman  was  a  reproach.  Under  pressure  of 
those  crushing  laws,  a  small  number  of  the  glorious  race 
had  the  weakness  to  change  their  faith  and  to  deny  the 


IS8  Lecture  IV. 

religion  of  their  fathers.  The  name  of  an  Irishman  was 
a  reproach.  My  friends,  Dean  Swift  was  born  in  Ire- 
land. Dean  Swift  is  looked  upon  as  a  patriotic  Irish- 
man. Yet  Dean  Swift  said  that  he  no  more  con- 
sidered himself  an  Irishman,  because  he  happened  to 
be  born  in  Ireland,  than  an  Englishman  chancing  to  be 
born  in  Calcutta  would  consider  himself  a  Hindoo. 
Of  the  degradation  of  the  Irish  and  their  utter  pros- 
tration he  went  so  far  as  to  say,  he  would  not  think  of 
taking  them  into  account  on  any  matter  of  importance 
any  more  than  he  would  of  consulting  the  swine. 
Lord  Macaulay  gloats  over  the  state  of  the  Catholics 
in  Ireland  then,  and  Mr.  Froude  views,  perhaps  not 
without  some  complacency,  their  misery.  Lord  Macau- 
lay  calls  them  pariahs,  and  compares  their  position  in 
the  disputes  between  the  English  and  Irish  Parliament 
with  that  of  *^  the  red  Indians  m.  the  dispute  between 
Old  England  and  New  England  about  the  Stamp  Act." 
And  we  find  Bowes,  the  Lord  Chancellor,  laying  down 
the  law  quite  coolly  and  calmly,  and  saying  that  **  in  the 
eye  of  the  law  no  Catholic  existed  in  Ireland.**  Chief 
Justice  Robinson  made  a  similar  declaration.  Here 
are  the  words  of  his  lordship  the  Chief  Justice:  **  It 
appears  *'  he  says,  **  plain  that  the  law  does  not  sup- 
pose any  such  person  to  exist  as  an  Irish  Roman 
Catholic."  Mr.  Froude  says  that  they  favored  the 
Pretender,  at  the  very  time  when  the  government 
itself  was  attributing  the  quietude  of  the  people  in 
Ireland,  not  to  their  prostration,  not  to  their  ruin,  as 
was  the   real   case,    but    to  their   devoted  loyalty  to 


Graft  an  and  the  Volunteers,  1 59 

the  crown  of  England.  The  Irish  people  were  quite 
indifferent  about  the  Pretender.  They  received  at 
the  time  some  doubtful  praise  for  their  loyalty  to  the 
House  of  Hanover.  But,  as  Mr.  Mitchel  truly  says, 
*'  If  they  took  no  part  in  the  insurrections  of  171 5  and 
1745,  it  may  be  said  (in  their  favor,  not  to  their 
dishonor)  that  it  was  on  account  of  exhaustion  and 
impotence,  not  on  account  of  loyalty.  If  they  had 
been  capable  at  that  time  of  attachment  to  the  Protest- 
ant succession,  and  of  loyalty  to  the  House  of  Hanover, 
they  would  have  been  even  more  degraded  than  they 
actually  were."  As  a  curious  instance  of  the  utter 
ruin  of  the  old  race,  and  the  shame  which  attached 
even  to  the  name  of  Irishman,  we  have  at  this  time  an 
Irishman  of  the  name  of  Phelim  O'Neill,  one  of  the 
glorious  old  line  of  Tyrone,  one  in  whose  veins 
flowed  the  blood  of  the  great  and  the  heroic  Red 
Hugh,  who  purpled  the  Blackwater,  who  struck  the 
Saxon  at  the  Yellow  I'ord,  and  purpled  the 
stream  of  the  Blackwater  with  his  blood.  One 
in  whose  veins  flowed  the  perhaps  still  nobler 
blood  of  the  immortal  Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  the 
glorious  victor  of  Benburb.  And  this  good 
Phelim  O'Neill  changed  his  religion  and  became  Prot- 
estant. But  it  seemed  to  him  a  strange  and  unnat- 
ural thing  that  a  man  of  the  name  of  O'Neill  should  be 
a  Protestant ;  so  he  changed  his  name  from 
Phelim  O'Neill  and  called  himself  Felix  Neal. 
There  has  been  a  good  deal  said  lately  about  the 
pronunciation    of    proper    names    and     what     they 


'l6o  Lecture  IV. 

rhyme  with.  This  man  made  his  name  rhyme 
with  eel — the  slippery  eel.  Now,  on  this  change 
of  the  gentleman's  name  and  religion,  an  old 
parish  priest  wrote  some  Latin  verses,  which  were 
translated  by  Clarence  Mangan.  I  will  read  them,  just 
to  let  you  see  how  things  were  in  Ireland  at  that  time : 

All  things  has  Felix  changed.     He  changed  his  name, 

Yea,  in  himself  he  is  no  more  the  same. 

Scorning  to  spend  his  days  where  he  was  reared, 

To  drag  out  life  among  the  vulgar  herd. 

And  trudge  his  way  through  bogs  in  bracks  and  brogues, 

He  changed  his  creed  and  joined  the  Saxon  rogues 

By  whom  his  sires  were  robbed,  and  laid  aside 

The  arms  they  bore  for  centuries  with  pride — 

The  "  ship,"  the  "  salmon,"  and  the  famed  "  Red  Hand  " — 

And  blushed  when  called  O'Neill  in  his  own  land. 

Poor  paltry  skulker  from  thy  noble  race  ! 

Infelix  Felix,  weep  for  thy  disgrace  ! 

But,  my  friends,  the  English  ascendency,  or  the 
Protestant  ascendency  in  Ireland,  if  you  will,  seeing 
now  that  they  had  got  every  penal  law  that  they  could 
ask  for,  seemed  to  look  upon  the  Irish  race  as  extermi- 
nated. This  extermination  in  truth  they  had  nearly 
accomplished,  for  they  had  driven  them  into  the  wilds 
and  wastes  of  Connaught,  and  they  would  have 
destroyed  them  all,  only  that  the  work  was  too  great, 
and  that  there  was  a  certain  something  in  the  old 
blood,  in  the  old  race,  that  terrified  them  when  they 
approached  it.  They  had  so  far  subdued  the  Catho- 
lics that  they  thought  now,  at  last,  that  their  hands 
were  free,  and  nothing  remained  for  them  but  to  make 


Gr  at  tan  and  the  Volunteers,  i6i 

Ireland,  as  Mr.  Froude  says,  a  garden.  They  were  to 
have  every  indulgence  and  every  privilege.  According- 
ly they  set  to  work.  They  had  their  own  parliament. 
No  Catholic  could  come  near  them  or  come  into  their 
towns — they  were  forbidden  to  show  themselves  at  all. 
The  Protestant  ascendency,  however,  were  greatly  sur- 
prised to  find  that  now  that  the  Catholics  were  crushed 
into  the  earth,  England  began  to  regard  the  Cromwel- 
lians  themselves  with  fear  and  hatred.  What !  They, 
the  sons  of  the  Puritans  !  They,  the  brave  men  that 
had  slaughtered  so  many  of  the  Irish  and  of  the  Cath- 
olic religion !  Are  they  to  be  treated  harshly  ?  Was 
their  trade,  or  their  commerce,  or  their  parliament  to 
be  interfered  with  ?  Ah  !  now,  indeed,  Mr.  Froude 
finds  tears,  and  weeps  them  over  the  injustice  and  over 
the  folly  of  England,  because  England  interfered  with 
the  commerce  and  with  the  trade  of  the  Protestant  as- 
cendency in  Ireland.  These  Protestant  tradesmen  were 
first-class  woolen  weavers ;  at  last,  the  cloth  they  made 
became  the  very  best,  and  took  the  very  highest  prices 
in  all  the  markets  of  Europe,  because  the  wool  of  the 
Irish  sheep  was  so  fine.  The  English  Parliament  made 
a  law  that  the  Irish  traders  were  not  to  be  allowed  to 
sell  any  more  cloth  ;  they  were  not  to  go  into  any 
more  markets  to  rival  their  English  fellow-merchants. 
They  were  to  stay  at  home  ;  they  had  the  island,  and 
they  might  make  the  most  of  it ;  but  no  freedom  in 
trade,  nothing  that  would  enrich  Ireland — that  the 
English  Parliament  forbade.  Now,  Mr.  Froude  as- 
signs as  the  reason  for  this  legislation,  that  England  at 


1 62  Lecture  IV. 

that  time  happened  to  be  under  the  control  of  a  paltry 
lot  of  selfish  money-jobbers  and  merchants.  Mere  ac- 
cident, according  to  him  ;  an  accident,  he  confesses, 
which  so  discontented  the  Orange  faction  in  Ireland 
that  many  hundreds  of  them  emigrated  and  came  ovef 
to  America  to  settle  m  the  New  England  States. 
Thither,  he  tells  us,  they  carried  their  hatred  with  them, 
and  that  feeling  which  helped  break  up  the  British  Em- 
pire. I  have  another  theory  of  this  great  question. 
I  hold  that  it  was  no  accident  of  the  hour  at  all  that 
made  England  place  her  restrictive  laws  on  the  Irish 
commerce  and  trade.  I  hold  that  it  was  the  settled 
policy  of  England.  These  men  who  were  now  in  the 
ascendency  in  Ireland  imagined  that  because  they  had 
ruined  and  beggared  the  ancient  race  and  the  men  of  the 
ancient  faith,  therefore  they  were  friends,  and  would  be 
regarded  as  friends  by  England.  I  hold  it  was  at  that 
time,  and,  in  a  great  measure,  is  to-day,  the  fixed  pol- 
icy of  England  to  keep  Ireland  down,  to  be  hostile  to 
Ireland,  no  matter  who  lives  in  it»  whether  he  be 
Catholic  or  Protestant,  whether  he  be  Norman,  Crom- 
wellian,  or  Celt.  *'  Your  fathers,**  says  Curran,  speak- 
ing to  the  men  of  his  time,  a  hundred  years  afterwards, 
'*  your  ancestors  thought  themselves  the  oppressors  of 
their  fellow-subjects  ;  but  they  were  only  their  jailers  ; 
and  the  justice  of  Providence  would  have  been  frustra- 
ted if  their  own  slavery  had  not  been  the  punishment 
for  their  baseness  and  their  folly."  That  slavery  came, 
and  it  fell  on  commerce.  The  Protestant  inhabitants 
of  Ireland,  the  Protestant  traders  of  Ireland,  the  plant- 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers,  163 

ers,  and  the  sons  of  the  planters,  were  beggared  by 
the  hostile  legislation  of  England,  simply  because  they 
were  now  in  Ireland,  and  had  an  interest  in  the  Irish 
soil,  and  in  the  welfare  of  the  country.  The  inimita- 
ble Swift,  speaking  on  this  subject,  makes  use  of  the 
following  quaint  fable  of  Ovid.  He  says,  *^  The  fable 
which  Ovid  relates  of  Arachne  and  Pallas  is  to  this 
purpose :  The  goddess  had  heard  of  a  certain  Arachne 
— a  virgin  famed  for  spinning  and  weaving.  They  both 
met  upon  a  trial  of  skill,  and  Pallas,  finding  herself 
almost  equalled  in  her  own  art,  stung  with  rage  and 
envy,  knocked  her  rival  down,  turned  her  into  a  spi- 
der, enjoining  her  to  spin  and  weave  forever  out  of 
her  own  bowels,  and  in  a  very  narrow  compass.  I 
confess,"  the  Dean  goes  on,  *^  that  from  a  boy  I  always 
pitied  poor  Arachne,  and  never  could  heartily  love  the 
goddess,  on  account  of  so  cruel  and  unjust  a  sentence, 
which,  however,  is  fully  executed  upon  us  by  England, 
with  the  further  addition  of  rigor  and  severity,  for  the 
greatest  part  of  our  bowels  and  vitals  is  extracted, 
without  allowing  us  the  liberty  of  spinning  or  weaving 
them."  Thus  he  writes  of  this  strange  piece  of  legis- 
lation, which  Mr.  Froude  acknowledges.  The  Irish 
wool  was  famous,  and  the  English  were  outbid  for  it 
by  the  French  manufacturers.  The  French  were  will- 
ing to  give  more  money  for  a  pound  of  Irish  wool, 
and  the  English  passed  a  law  that  the  Irish  people, 
the  farmers,  could  not  sell  their  wool  anywhere  but  in 
England  ;  so  they  fixed  their  price  on  it,  and  they 
took  the  wool,   made  cloth,  and,  as  the   Dean  says, 


164  Lecture  IV, 

poor  Ireland — Arachne — had  to  give  her  bowels  with- 
out the  pleasure  of  ppinning  or  weaving.  Then  the 
Dean  goes  on  to  say,  ^*  The  Scriptures  tell  us  that  op- 
pression makes  the  wise  man  mad,  therefore,  the  rea- 
son that  some  men  in  Ireland  are  not  mad,  is  because*, 
they  are  not  wise  men/*  However,  it  were  to  be 
wished  that  oppression  would  in  time  teach  a 
little  wisdom  to  fools.  Well,  we  call  Dean  Swift 
a  patriot.  How  little  did  he  think,  great  man  as  he 
was,  of  the  oppression,  compared  with  which  the  re- 
striction upon  the  wool  was  nothing,  the  oppression 
that  beggared  and  ruined  a  whole  people,  that  drove 
them  from  their  land,  that  drove  them  from  every 
pleasure  in  life,  that  drove  them  from  their  country, 
that  maddened  them  to  desperation,  and  all  because 
they  had  Irish  names,  Irish  blood,  and  because  they 
would  not  give  up  the  faith  which  their  consciences 
told  them  was  true.  And  now,  my  friends,  Mr. 
Froude,  having  related  how  these  unjust  restrictive 
laws  forced  the  Protestant  operatives  to  come  to 
America,  tries  to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  in  their  behalf.  If  he  stopped  there  I 
would  not  have  a  word  to  say  to  the  learned  historian. 
When  an  Englishman  claims  the  sympathy  of  this  or 
any  other  land  for  men  of  his  people  and  of  his  re- 
ligion, if  they  are  deserving  of  that  sympathy,  I,  an 
Irishman,  am  always  ready  and  the  first  to  grant  it 
to  them  with  all  my  heart.  And,  therefore,  I  do  not 
find  the  slightest  fault  with  this  learned  Englishman 
when   he    challenges    the   sympathy   of  America   for 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers,  165 

the  Orangemen  of  Ireland  and  the  Protestants  who 
came  to  this  country.  If  these  men  were  deserving 
of  American  sympathy,  why  not  let  them  have  it? 
But  whilst  Mr.  Froude  claims  sympathy  for  the  Prot- 
estant emigrants  from  Ireland,  as  staunch  republicans 
and  lovers  of  American  liberty,  he  tells  us  that  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  on  the  other  hand,  were  clamor- 
ing at  the  foot  of  the  throne,  telling  King  George  III. 
that  they  would  be  only  too  happy  to  go  out  at  his 
command  to  shoot  the  American  people  in  his  cause. 
Is  that  statement  true  or  not?  My  friends,  the  learn- 
ed gentleman  quoted  a  petition  presented  in  1775,  the 
very  year  America  began  to  assert  her  independence. 
In  that  petition  he  states  that  Lord  Fingal  and 
several  other  Catholic  noblemen  of  Ireland,  speaking  in 
the  name  of  the  Irish  people,  pronounced  the  Amer- 
ican revolution  an  unnatural  rebellion,  and  manifested 
their  desire  to  go  out  and  devote  themselves  for  the 
best  of  king's,  to  the  suppression  of  American  liberty. 
First  of  all  I  ask,  when,  at  any  time  in  our  history,  has 
any  one  of  these  Catholic  lords  been  authorized  to  speak 
in  the  name  of  the  Irish  people  ?  But,  not  doubting 
Mr.  Froude*s  word  at  all,  and  only  anxious  to  satisfy 
myself  by  historic  research,  I  have  looked  for  this  peti- 
tion. I  have  found,  indeed,  a  petition  in  Curry's  col- 
lection— a  petition  signed  by  Lord  Fingal  and  by  a 
number  of  other  Catholic  Irishmen,  addressed  to  his 
Majesty  the  King,  in  which  they  protest  their  loyalty 
in  terms  of  slavish  and  servile  adulation,  but  in  that 
petition  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover  one  single 


1 66  Lecture  IV. 

word  about  the  American  Revolution,  not  a  single  word 
of  address  to  the  king  about  a  desire  to  destroy  the 
liberties  of  America.  Not  one  word!  I  have  sought, 
and  my  friends  have  sought,  in  the  records  and  in 
every  document  that  was  at  our  hands,  for  this  peti-  * 
tion  of  which  Mr.  Froude  speaks,  and  I  could  not  find 
it.  There  must  be  a  mistake  somewhere  or  other.  It 
is  strange  that  a  petition  of  so  much  importance 
would  not  be  published  amongst  the  documents  of  the 
time.  We  know  that  Sir  John  Blacquiere  was  secre- 
tary to  the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  in  1775.  Na- 
turally enough  the  petition  would  go  to  him,  not  to 
rest  with  him,  but  to  be  presented  to  the  king.  And 
yet,  I  think  I  may  state  with  certainty  that  the  only 
petition  that  was  presented  to  the  king  in  1775  was 
the  one  of  which  I  speak,  and  in  which  there  was  not 
a  single  word  about  America  or  the  American  Revolu- 
tion. But  the  learned  historian's  resources  are  so 
much  more  ample  than  mine;  his  resources  of  time,  of 
preparation,  and  of  talent ;  his  resources  in  the  varied 
sources  of  information  amongst  which  he  has  lived 
and  passed  his  years,  that  no  doubt  he  will  be  able  to 
explain  this. 

The  Catholics  of  Ireland  were  down  in  the  dust ; 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland  had  no  voice;  they  had  not  as 
much  as  a  vote  for  a  parish  beadle,  much  less  for  a  Mem- 
ber of  Parliament.  Does  Mr.  Froude  mean  to  tell  the 
American  people  that  these  unfortunate  wretches 
would  not  have  welcomed  the  cry  that  came  from  across 
the  Atlantic ;  the  cry  of  a  people  who  rose  like  a  giant, 


Gr  at  tan  and  the  Volunteers,  167 

yet  only  an  infant  in  age,  proclaiming  the  eternal  liberty 
of  men  and  of  nations,  and  proclaiming  that  no  people 
upon  the  earth  should  be  taxed  without  representa- 
tion, and  giving  the  first  blow,  right  across  the  face  of 
England,  that  the  old  tyrant  had  received  for  many  a 
year — a  blow  before  which  England  reeled,  and  came 
to  her  knees  ?  Does  he  mean  to  tell  you  or  me,  citi- 
zens of  America,  that  such  an  event  as  this  would  be 
distasteful  to  the  poor  Irish  Catholics  of  Ireland  ?  It 
is  true  that  they  had  crushed  them  as  far  as  they  could, 
but  they  had  not  taken  all  the  manhood  out  of  them. 
Deep  and  earnest  was  the  sympathy  of  Catholic  Ire- 
land with  America,  and  many  a  proof  of  her  love  did 
ancient  Erin  give  the  great  young  country.  Lord 
Howe,  the  English  general,  in  that  year  of  177S,  writes 
home  to  his  government  in  England  from  America,  and 
says :  ^^  Send  me  out  German  troops.**  You  know 
England  was  in  the  habit  of  employing  Hessians.  I 
don't  say  this  with  the  slightest  feeling  of  disrespect. 
I  have  the  deepest  respect  for  the  great  German  ele- 
ment in  this  country ;  but  in  these  times,  we  know 
that  the  troops  of  small  German  states  were  hired  out 
by  their  princes  to  whoever  took  them,  and  engaged 
them  to  fight  their  battles.  *^  Send  me  out  German 
troops,"  he  says,  *^for  I  have  a  great  dislike  for  the 
Catholic  soldiers,  as  they  are  not  at  all  to  be  depended 
upon.'*  They  sent  out  four  thousand  troops  from  Ire- 
land ;  but  listen  to  this.  Arthur  Lee  was  agent  of  the 
American  government  in  1777,  and  he  says,  writing  to 
Washington,  '*  The  resources  of  our  enemy,  that  is  to 


1 68  Lecture  IV. 

say,  England,  are  almost  annihilated  in  Germany,  and 
their  last  resort  is  to  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland ; 
they  have  already  experienced  their  unwillingness  to 
go,  every  man  of  a  regiment  raised  there  last  year 
having  obliged  them  to  ship  him  off  tied  and  bound.* 
When  the  Irish  Catholic  soldiers  heard  that  they  were 
to  go  to  America  to  cut  the  throats  of  the  American 
people,  and  to  scalp  them,  they  swore  they  never 
would  do  it ;  and  they  had  to  take  them,  tie  them,  and 
carry  them  on  board  the  ships.  But  Arthur  Lee  goes 
on  to  say,  *^  And  most  certainly  they  will  desert  more 
than  any  other  troops  whatsoever."  Louden,  a  histo- 
rian of  the  time,  tells  us  that  the  war  against  America 
was  not  very  popular,  even  in  England.  *^  But  in  Ire- 
land," he  says,  *'  the  people  assumed  the  cause  of 
America  through  sympathy." 

Let  us  leave  Ireland,  and  go  to  America.  Let  us 
see  how  the  great  men  who  were  building  up  the 
magnificent  edifice  of  their  country's  freedom,  lay- 
ing the  foundation  in  their  own  best  blood,  in  those 
days — how  they  regarded  the  Irish?  In  1790,  the 
immortal  George  Washington  received  an  address 
from  the  Catholics  of  America,  signed  by  Bishop 
Carroll,  of  Maryland,  and  many  others.  Replying 
to  that  address,  the  calm,  magnificent  man  makes 
use  of  these  words:  *'  I  hope,"  he  says,  **  ever  to  see 
America  amongst  the  foremost  nations  in  examples 
of  justice  and  liberality,  and  I  presume  that  your  fel- 
low-citizens will  not  forget  the  patriotic  part  which 
you  took  in  the  accomplishment  of  their  revolution, 


G rattan  and  the  Volunteers,  1 69 

and  in  the  establishment  of  their  government ;  or  the 
important  assistance  they  received  from  a  nation  in 
which  the  Roman  CathoHc  reHgion  is  professed.**  In 
the  month  of  December,  1781,  the  Friendly  Sons  of 
St.  Patrick,  in  Philadelphia,  elected  George  Washing- 
ton a  member  of  their  society.  These  Friendly  Sons 
of  St.  Patrick  were  great  friends  of  the  great  Ameri- 
can Father  of  his  Country.  When  his  army  lay  at  Val- 
ley Forge,  twenty-seven  members  of  this  society  of  the 
Friendly  Sonssu  bscribed  between  them,  in  July,  1780, 
;^i03,5oo  sterling,  of  Pennsylvania  currency,  for  the 
American  troops,  who  were  in  want  of  means.  George 
Washington  accepts  the  fellowship  of  their  society, 
and  he  says :  ''  I  accept  with  singular  pleasure  the  en- 
sign of  so  worthy  a  fraternity  as  that  of  the  Sons  of 
St.  Patrick,  in  this  city — a  society  distinguished  for  the 
firm  adherence  of  its  members  to  the  glorious  cause  in 
which  we  are  embarked."  During  that  time  what 
greater  honor  could  have  been  bestowed  by  Washing- 
ton than  that  w^iich  he  bestowed  upon  the  Irish  ? 
When  the  traitor  Arnold  betrayed  the  cause  at  West 
Point,  Washington  was  obliged  to  choose  the  very 
best  and  most  reliable  soldiers  in  his  army,  and  send 
them  to  West  Point,  to  take  the  place  that  was  so  well- 
nigh  being  betrayed  by  the  traitor.  From  his  whole 
army  he  selected  the  celebrated  Pennsylvania  Line,  as 
they  were  called,  and  these  men  were  mainly  made  up  of 
Irishmen.  Nay,  more,  not  merely  of  Protestant  Irish- 
men, or  Northern  men,  or  of  those  who,  in  that  time, 

were  called  Scotch  Irish,  for  that  was  the  name  which, 

8 


I/O  Lecture  /F. 

in  the  year  of  the  Revolution,  designated  Mr.  Froude's 
friends,  who  emigrated  from  Ulster.  But,  looking 
over  the  muster-roll  of  the  Pennsylvania  Line,  we  find 
such  names  as  Duffy,  Maguire,  and  O'Brien  ;  these  and 
such  as  these  are  the  names  not  of  Palatines  nor  of  n 
Scotch  planters  in  Ireland,  but  they  are  the  names  of 
thoroughbred  Irish  Celts.  They  fought  and  bled  for 
Washington,  and  Washington  loved  them.  And  now, 
I  wish  to  gxw^  you  a  little  incident  of  that  celebrated 
corps,  to  let  you  see  how  their  hearts  were  in 
relation  to  America.  ^^  During  the  American  Rev- 
olution," says  Mr.  Carey,  **  a  band  of  Irishmen  were 
embodied  in  the  defense  of  the  country  of  their  adop- 
tion, against  the  country  of  their  birth  ;  they  formed 
the  major  part  of  the  celebrated  Pennsylvania  Line  ; 
they  bravely  fought  and  bled  for  the  United  States ; 
many  of  these  sealed  their  attachment  with  their 
lives  ;  their  adopted  country  neglected  them  somewhat, 
the  wealthy,  independent,  and  the  luxurious,  for  whom 
they  fought,  were  now  rioting  in  the  superfluities  of 
life,  while  the  defenders  were  literally  half  starved, 
half  naked,  their  shoeless  feet  marked  with  blood  their 
tracks  upon  the  highways.  They  long  bore  their 
grievances  patiently ;  they  had  long  murmured  ;  they 
j-emonstrated,  imploring  the  necessaries  of  life,  but  in 
vain  ;  a  deaf  ear  was  turned  to  their  complaints  :  they 
felt  indignant  at  the  cold  neglect  and  ingratitude  of 
the  country  for  which  thousands  of  their  companions 
in  arms  had  expired  on  the  crimson  field  of  battle ; 
they  held  arms  in   their  hands,  and  they  mutinied/' 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers,  i/i 

Well,  as  soon  as  the  English  commanders  had  heard 
that  the  Irish  soldiers  had  mutinied,  what  did  they  do? 
Intelligence  was  carried  to  the  British  camp,  and  it  over- 
spread joy  and  gladness,  that  Lord  Howe  hoped  that 
the  period  had  arrived  for  the  end  of  this  rebellion,  as 
it  was  termed,  and  that  there  was  a  glorious  opportuni- 
ty to  crush  out  the  embryo  Republic.  He  counted  much 
on  the  natural  resentment  of  the  natives  of  the  Emerald 
Isle.  He  knew  how  irritable  their  tempers  were  ;  he 
calculated  upon  diminishing  the  strength  and  numbers 
of  the  rebels,  by  an  accession  of  the  same  numbers  to 
the  royal  army.  Messengers  were  dispatched  to  the 
mutineers,  and  they  had  a  carte  blanche  to  make  their 
own  terms ;  promises  were  to  be  made  to  them  if 
the  prodigal  children  feeding  upon  husks  should  return 
to  the  plentiful  fields  of  their  royal  masters.  Liberal- 
ity itself  presided  in  their  offers  of  abundant  supplies, 
and  provisions  ample  enough  for  their  hearts*  content ; 
all  arrears  of  pay,  and  pardon  for  past  offences,  were 
offered  to  them.  There  was  not,  however,  any  hesita- 
tion amongst  these  poor,  neglected  warriors.  They 
refused  to  renounce  poverty,  nakedness,  and  ingrati- 
tude. Splendid  temptations  were  held  out  to  them  in 
vain  ;  there  was  no  Judas,  there  were  no  Arnolds 
amongst  them.  They  seized  upon  their  tempters  and 
trampled  upon  their  shining  gold.  They  sent  them  to 
their  generals,  and  these  miserable  wretches  paid  their 
forfeited  lives  for  attempting  to  seduce  a  band  of  for- 
lorn, deserted,  but  illustrious  heroes.  *^  We  prate,*' 
he  says,  ''  about  the  old  Roman  and  Grecian  patriotism. 


1/2  Lecture  IV. 

One-half  of  it  is  false,  and  in  the  other  half  there  is 
nothing  that  excels  these  noble  traits  in  our  army; 
which  are  worthy  of  the  pencil  of  a  West,  or  a  Trum- 
bull." Mark  how  it  is  that  America  regarded  them ! 
mark  the  testimony  of  some  of  America's  greatest , 
men !  Mr.  Froude  seems  to  think  that  the  American 
people  looked  upon  the  Irish  nation  and  the  Irish  peo- 
ple as  represented  in  their  great  contest  by  the  Prot- 
estant emigrants  from  Ireland.  Was  this  the  view  that 
America  and  her  statesmen  took  of  them?  No! 
Here  is  the  testimony  of  George  Washington  Parke 
Custis,  the  adopted  son  of  George  Washington.  The 
Irish,  in  1829,  won  Catholic  Emancipation  ;  and  before 
that  time,  when  they  were  struggHng  for  emancipation, 
they  appealed  for  sympathy  and  moral  support  to 
America ;  and  now  this  is  how  this  great  American 
gentleman  speaks  of  them :  "  And  why  is  this  impos- 
ing appeal  made  to  our  sympathies?  It  is  an  appeal 
from  that  very  Ireland,  whose  generous  sons,  alike  in  the 
days  of  our  gloom  and  of  our  glory,  shared  in  our  mis- 
fortunes and  joined  in  our  success;  who,  with  undaunt- 
ed courage  breasted  the  storm  which  once,  threatening 
to  overwhelm  us,  howled  with  fearful  and  desolating 
fury  through  this  now  happy  land  ;  who,  with  aspira- 
tions deep  and  fervent  for  our  cause,  whether  under 
the  walls  of  the  Castle  of  Dublin,  in  the  shock  of  our 
liberty's  battles,  or  in  the  feeble  and  expiring  accents 
of  famine  and  misery,  amidst  the  horrors  of  the  prison, 
ship,  cried  from  their  hearts,  '*  God  save  America ! 
Tell  me  not,"  he  goes  on  to   say,  ''tell  me  not  of  the 


Gr  at  tan  and  the  Volunteers.  173 

aid  which  we  received  from  another  European  nation, 
in  the  struggle  for  independence ;  that  aid  was  most, 
nay,  all  essential,  to  our  ultimate  success  ;  but  remem- 
ber, years  of  the  conflict  had  rolled  aw^ay.'*  The  cap- 
ture of  Burgoyne  had  ratified  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence— the  renowned  combats  of  the  Heights  of 
Charleston  and  Fort  Moultrie;  the  bloody  and  disas- 
trous days  of  Long  Island,  of  Brandywine,  and  Ger- 
mantown  ;  the  glories  of  Trenton,  Princeton,  and  Mon- 
mouth, all  had  occurred  ;  and  the  rank  grass  had  grown 
over  the  grave  of  many  a  poor  Irishman  who  had  died 
for  America,  ere  the  Flag  of  the  Lilies  floated  on  the 
field  by  the  Star  Spangled  Banner.  "  But,"  he  adds, 
"  of  the  operatives  in  war — I  mean  the  soldiers — up  to 
the  coming  of  the  French,  Ireland  had  furnished  in 
the  ratio  of  one  hundred  for  one  of  any  foreign  nation 
whatever/'  Then  this  generous  American  gentleman, 
to  whom  Ireland  appealed  for  sympathy — for  Mr. 
Froude's  is  not  the  first  appeal  that  has  been  made  to 
the  people  of  America — this  high-minded  gentleman 
goes  on  to  say,  "  Then  honored  be  the  old  good  ser- 
vice of  the  sons  of  Erin,  in  the  War  of  Independ- 
ence. Let  the  shamrock  be  entwined  with  the 
laurels  of  the  revolution ;  and  truth  and  justice, 
guiding  the  pen  of  history,  inscribe  on  the  tablets 
of  America's  remembrance,  Eternal  Gratitude  to 
Irishmen !  "  Remember  that  this  was  Washington's 
son ;  remember  that  he  tells  us  that  the  old  gray- 
headed,  crippled  veterans,  who  had  fought  under  his 
father's  banner    in   that  war  of  independence,    were 


174  Lecture  IV. 

accustomed  to  come  to  his  house,  and  there  he 
would  receive  them  at  his  door,  and  bring  them  in  ; 
and  he  tells  us  affectionately  of  one  old  Irishman  who 
had  fought  in  the  wars  ;  who,  after  drinking  the 
health  of  the  gentleman  who  had  entertained  him, 
lifted  up  his  aged  eyes,  and  with  tears  he  said,  ''  Now 
let  me  drink  to  General  Washington,  who  is  in  Heaven 
this  day.'*  He  says  on  the  same  occasion,  **  Ameri- 
cans, recall  to  your  mind  the  recollections  of  the 
heroic  time  when  Irishmen  were  our  friends,  and  when 
in  the  whole  world  we  hadn't  a  friend  besides.  Look 
to  the  period  that  tried  men's  souls,  and  you  will 
find  that  the  sons  of  Erin  rushed  to  our  ranks,  and, 
amid  the  clash  of  steel,  on  many  a  memorable  day, 
many  a  John  Byrne  was  not  idle."  Remember,  he 
does  not  say  many  a  Spraggs,  or  many  a  Gibbs,  or 
men  that  came  over  with  Cromwell,  but — honest  John 
Byrne.  Who  was  this  honest  John  Byrne  of 
whom  he  speaks?  He  was  an  Irish  soldier  of 
Washington's,  who,  taken  prisoner  by  the  English 
and  put  on  board  a  prison-ship,  was  left  in  chains  in 
whe  hold  of  the  ship,  pestilence  being  on  board.  He 
was  more  than  half  starved ;  he  was  scarcely  able, 
when  he  was  called  on  deck,  to  crawl  like  a  poor, 
stricken  creature  to  the  commander's  feet  to  hear 
what  sentence  was  to  be  pronounced  upon  him.  And 
when  the  English  commander  offered  him  liberty,  life, 
clothing,  food,  and  money,  if  he  would  give  up  the 
cause  in  which  he  was  taken  prisoner  and  join  the 
ranks  of  the  British  army  ;  with  a  voice  scarcely  able 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers,  175 

to  speak ;  raising  a  hand  scarcely  able  to  lift  itseli 
up,  the  Irishman  looked  to  Heaven,  and  cried  out, 
'*  Hurrah  for  America !  '*  In  the  face  of  such  facts, 
in  the  face  of  such  testimony,  in  the  presence  of  the 
honored  name  and  record  of  George  Washington,  tes- 
tifying to  what  the  Irish  Catholic  men  have  done  for 
America,  Mr.  Froude  speaks  as  faintly  as  if  he  were 
speaking  to  the  hurricane  that  sweeps  over  the  ocean, 
when  he  tries  to  impress  the  American  mind  and  the 
American  people  with  any  prejudice  against  the  poor 
Catholics  of  Ireland.  Speaking  in  the  year  1809, 
when  America  was  preparing  for  her  second  war  with 
England,  MacNevin  records  that  ^^  One  of  the  offences 
charged  upon  the  Irish,  and  amongst  the  many  pre- 
texts for  refusing  redress  to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland, 
was  that  sixteen  thousand  of  them  fought  on  the  side 
of  America.*'  But  he  adds  *^  that  many  more  thou- 
sands are  ready  to  maintain  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, and  that  will  be  their  second  offence.'* 

Now,  my  friends,  there  are  other  testimonies  as  well 
as  these  of  the  men  of  the  time ;  we  have  the  testi- 
mony of  American  literary  gentlemen,  such,  for  instance, 
as  that  of  Mr.  Paulding.  Here  are  the  words  of  that 
distinguished  gentleman :  '^  The  history  of  Ireland's 
unhappy  connection  with  England  exhibits,  from  first 
to  last,  a  detail  of  the  most  persevering,  galling,  grind- 
ing, insulting,  and  systematic  oppression  to  be  found 
anywhere,  except  among  the  helots  of  Sparta.  There 
is  not  a  national  feeling  that  has  not  been  insulted  and 
trodden   under  foot,  or  a  national  right  that  has  not 


i^t  Lecture  IV, 

been  withheld,  until  fear  forced  it  from  the  grasp  of 
England,  or  a  dear  or  ancient  prejudice  that  has  not 
been  violated,  in  that  abused  country.  As  Christians, 
the  people  of  Ireland  have  been  denied,  under  penalties 
and  disqualifications,  the  exercise  of  the  rites  of  the 
Catholic  religion,  venerable  for  its  antiquity,  admira- 
ble for  its  unity,  and  consecrated  in  the  belief  of  some 
of  the  best  men  that  ever  breathed.  As  men  they 
have  been  deprived  of  the  common  rights  of  British 
subjects,  under  the  pretext  that  they  were  incapable 
of  enjoying  them,  for  which  pretext  they  had  no  other 
foundation  than  their  resistance  of  oppression,  only  the 
more  severe  by  being  sanctioned  by  the  laws.  England 
first  denied  them  the  means  of  improvement,  and  then 
insulted  them  with  the  imputation  of  barbarism.*' 
Another  distinguished  American,  Mr.  Johnson,  says  : 
**  There  is  no  instance,  even  in  the  Ten  Persecutions, 
of  such  severity  as  that  which  has  been  exercised  over 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland.*'  Thus  think  and  thus  speak 
the  men  whose  names  are  bright  in  the  records  of  liter- 
ary America.  Take,  again,  the  unanimous  address 
agreed  to  by  the  several  members  of  the  Legislature 
of  Maryland.  Speaking  of  Ireland,  these  American 
senators  and  legislators  say,  **  This  dependency  of 
Great  Britain  has  languished  under  an  oppression  long 
reprobated  by  all  humanity,  and  discountenanced  by 
all  just  policy.  It  would  argue  a  penury  of  human 
feelings,  an  ignorance  of  human  rights,  to  submit  pa- 
tiently. In  the  lapse  of  centuries  which  have  witnessed 
the  struggles  of  Ireland,  but  only  with  partial  success, 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers,  i  "j^j 

rebellion  and  insurrection  have  continued,  with  but 
short  intervals  of  tranquillity.  America  has  opened 
her  arms  to  the  oppressed  of  all  nations.  No  people 
have  availed  themselves  of  the  asylum  with  more  alac- 
rity or  in  greater  numbers  than  the  Irish.  High  is 
the  meed  of  praise,  rich  is  the  reward  that  Irishmen 
have  merited  through  the  gratitude  of  America  :  as 
heroes  and  statesmen  they  honor  their  adopted 
country."  Until  such  words  as  these  are  wiped  out 
of  the  records  of  American  history,  until  the  gen- 
erous sentiments  which  inspired  them  have  ceased 
to  be  a  portion  of  the  American  nature,  and  not 
until  then,  will  Mr.  Froude  get  the  verdict  which 
he  seeks  from  America  to-day.  I  have  looked  through 
the  American  archives  and  I  have  found  that  the  foun- 
dation of  these  sympathies  lay  in  the  simple  fact  that 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland  were  heart  and  soul  with  you, 
American  gentlemen,  with  you  and  your  fathers  in  that 
glorious  struggle.  I  find  in  the  third  volume  of  the 
American  archives  a  letter  from  Ireland,  dated  Septem- 
ber 17,  1775,  to  a  friend  in  New  York,  in  which  the 
American  gentleman  writing,  says  :  ^^  Most  of  the  peo- 
ple here  wish  well  to  the  cause  in  which  you  are  en- 
gaged. They  are  raising  recruits  throughout  this 
kingdom.  (The  men  are  told  that  they  are  only  going 
to  Edinburgh  to  learn  military  discipline  and  then  to 
return^  Before  they  got  a  single  Irishman  to  enlist 
they  had  to  tell  him  a  lie,  well  knowing  that  if  he 
thought  they  were  going  to  arm  him  and  to  send  him 
to  America  to  fight  against  the  American  people,  he 

8^ 


17B  Lecture  IV. 

would  never  enter  the  ranks  of  the  British  army  for 
any  such  purpose.  A  certain  Major  Roche  went  down 
to  Cork  to  recruit  men  for  America,  and  he  made  a 
great  speech  to  them  ;  it  was  very  laughable.  He  called 
upon  them  as  Irishmen,  by  all  that  they  held  sacred, 
the  glorious  nationality  to  which  they  belonged,  the 
splendid  monarch  that  governed  them,  and  then  he 
held  up  the  golden  guineas  and  the  pound  notes  before 
them — and  here  is  the  record  of  the  affair  in  the  third 
volume  of  the  American  archives :  '*  An  account 
of  the  success  of  Major  Roche  in  raising  recruits  to 
fight  against  America.  The  service  was  so  disagree- 
able to  the  people  of  Ireland  in  general,  that  few  of 
the  recruiting  officers  could  prevail  upon  a  man  to  en- 
list and  fight  against  their  American  brethren.''  That 
same  year,  in  the  British  House  of  Commons,  Mr. 
Johnson  says :  **  I  maintain  that  the  sense  of  the  best 
and  the  wisest  men  in  the  country  are  on  the  side  of 
the  Americans,  and  in  Ireland  three  to  one  are  on  the 
side  of  the  Americans."  In  the  House  of  Lords,  in 
the  same  year,  of  '75,  the  Duke  of  Richmond  makes 
this  statement :  "  Attempts  have  been  made  to  enlist 
the  Irish  Roman  Catholics,  but  the  minister  knows 
well  that  these  attempts  have  been  proved  unsuccess- 
ful." We  find  again  the  Congress  of  America  ad- 
dressed the  people  of  Ireland  in  that  memorable  year 
of  1775,  and  here  are  the  words  that  America's  first 
Congress  sends  over  the  Atlantic  waves  to  the  afflicted, 
down-trodden  Irish:  ''Accept  our  most  grateful  ac- 
knowledgment for  the   friendly  disposition    you  have 


Grattmi  and  the  Volunteers,  1 79 

always  shown  towards  us.  We  know  that  you  are  not 
without  your  grievances ;  we  sympathize  with  you  in 
your  distress,  and  we  are  pleased  to  find  that  the  design 
of  subjugating  us  has  persuaded  the  administration  to 
dispense  to  Ireland  some  vagrant  rays  of  ministerial 
sunshine.  Even  the  tender  mercies  of  the  govern- 
ment have  long  been  cruel  towards  you.  In  the  rich 
pastures  of  Ireland  many  hungry  parasites  are  fed, 
and  grow  strong  to  labor  in  her  destruction."  We 
find  such  words  as  these  addressed,  not  to  the  Pala- 
tines and  planters  ;  for  if  the  Congress  of  America  was 
addressing  the  planters  and  Cromwellians  in  Ireland, 
they  would  not  have  used  such  language  as  this :  ""  In 
the  rich  pastures  of  Ireland  many  hungry  parasites  are 
fed,  and  grow  strong  to  labor  in  its  destruction." 

Benjamin  Franklin,  of  glorious  and  immortal  name, 
was  in  Versailles,  as  minister  from  the  American  gov- 
ernment. He  writes  to  the  people  of  Ireland  in  Octo- 
ber, 1778,  and  says:  *^  The  misery  and  distress  which 
your  ill-fated  country  has  been  so  frequently  exposed 
to  and  has  so  often  experienced,  by  such  a  combination 
of  rapine,  treachery,  and  violence  as  would  have  dis- 
graced the  name  of  g-jvernment  in  the  most  arbitrary 
country  in  the  world,  has  most  sincerely  affected  your 
friends  in  America,  and  has  engaged  the  most  serious 
attention  of  Congress."  Now  I  come  to  another  hon- 
ored name,  that  of  Gulian  C.  Verplanck.  When  the 
Catholic  Emancipation  Act  was  passed,  there  was  a 
banquet  in  the  City  of  New  York  to  celebrate  the 
event,  and  this  distinguished  American  gentleman  pro- 


i8o  Lecture  IV, 

posed  a  health  or  a  toast,  and  it  was  a  Catholic  toast : 
^*  The  Penal  Laws — Rejtiiescat  in  pace — may  they  rest 
in  peace.'* 

^*  And  yet,"  says  Mr.  Verplanck,  **  I  have  a  good 
word  to  say  for  them."  What  was  that  good  word  ? 
Here  it  is :  ''  That  in  the  glorious  struggle  for  our  in- 
dependence, and  in  our  more  recent  contest  for  na- 
tional rights,  those  laws  gave  the  American  flag  the 
support  of  hundreds  and  thousands  of  brave  hearts 
and  strong  arms,  at  the  same  time  contributing  an 
equal  portion  of  intellectual  and  moral  powers." 

Let  us  come  down  to  our  time,  passing  over  the 
magnificent  testimony  of  Henry  Clay,  and  his  sympa- 
thies for  Catholic  Ireland.  America,  even  at  this  hour, 
is  mourning  over  the  grave  of  a  great  man.  But  a  few 
days  ago  the  nation  accompanied  to  his  last  resting- 
place  William  H.  Seward.  And  this  illustrious  Amer- 
ican statesman  said,  in  1847,  ''  Ireland  not  only  sym- 
pathized profoundly  with  the  trans-Atlantic  colonists 
in  their  complaints  of  usurpation,  under  which  she  suf- 
fered more  sorely  than  they ;  but,  with  inherent  be- 
nevolence and  ardor,  she  yielded  at  once  to  the  sway 
of  the  great  American  idea  of  universal  emancipation. 
The  bitter  memory  of  a  stream  of  ages  lifted  up  her 
thoughts,  and  she  was  ready  to  follow  to  the  war  for 
the  rights  of  human  nature,  '  the  propitious  God,  who 
seemed  to  lead  the  way.'  " 

Finally,  one  extract  and  I  have  done  with  this  por- 
tion of  my  lecture.  I  find  that  such  were  the  rela- 
tions between  Ireland  and  America  in  that    struggle. 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers,  1 8 1 

that  a  certain  Captain  Wicks,  of  the  ship  Reprisal, 
in  the  summer  of  1776  captured  three  prizes  near  the 
West  Indies,  which  were  English  property.  He  detail- 
ed some  of  his  own  men  on  board  of  them,  and  sent 
them  to  the  nearest  port  to  be  adjudged  as  prizes. 
Shortly  after  he  came  across  another  vessel,  and  he 
let  her  go,  finding  she  was  Irish  property.  The  Mar- 
quis Chasteloux,  a  distinguished  Frenchman  who  was 
in  America  in  1782,  writes  thus:  ''An  Irishman,  the 
instant  he  sets  his  foot  on  American  soil,  becomes 
ipso  facto  an  American.  This  was  uniformly  the 
case  during  the  whole  of  the  late  war."  Remember, 
this  Frenchman  was  fighting  for  you.  ''  While  Eng- 
lishmen and  Scotchmen  were  treated  with  jealousy 
and  distrust,  even  with  the  best  recommendations  of 
zeal  and  attachment  to  the  cause,  the  native  of  Ire- 
land stood  in  need  of  no  other  certificate  than  his  dia- 
lect." Which  shows  that  what  our  French  friend  is 
speaking  of  was  not  a  Palatine  nor  a  planter,  but  a 
genuine  Paddy — and  no  mistake  about  it.  His  sin- 
cerity was  never  called  in  question  ;  he  was  supposed 
to  have  a  sympathy  with  suffering,  and  every  one 
decided,  as  it  were  intuitively,  in  his  favor.  ''  Indeed," 
he  adds,  ''  their  conduct  in  the  late  war  amply  justi- 
fied their  favorable  opinion,  for  whilst  the  Irish  emi- 
grant was  fighting  the  battles  of  America  by  sea  and 
land,  the  Irish  merchants,  principally  of  Charleston, 
Baltimore,  and  Philadelphia,  labored  with  indefatiga- 
ble zeal  at  all  hazards  to  promote  the  spirit  of  enter- 
prise, and  increase  the  wealth  and  maintain  the  credit 


1 82  Lecture  IV. 

of  the  country.  Their  purses  always  were  opened, 
and  their  persons  devoted  to  the  country's  cause, 
and  on  more  than  one  imminent  occasion  ,  Con- 
gress itself,  and  the  very  existence  of  America, 
probably,  owed  its  preservation  to  the  fidelity  and%^ 
firmness  of  the  Irish.  I  had  the  honor,"  he  says, 
*'  of  dining  with  an  Irish  society,  composed  of  the 
wealthiest  merchants  and  others  of  the  city,  in 
the  city  tavern  of  Philadelphia,  on  St.  Patrick's  Day." 
Mr.  Froude  must  not  run  away  with  the  assertion 
that  the  Irish  merchants  of  Charleston  and  Baltimore 
and  Philadelphia  were  the  Puritan  settlers.  If  they 
had  been,  they  would  have  gone  home  and  eaten  a 
cold  dinner  on  St.  Patrick's  Day. 

So  much  for  America  and  Ireland's  relations  with  her. 
When  the  English  government  asked  for  four  thousand 
Irish  soldiers  to  go  out  and  fight  Americans,  they 
offered  to  send  to  Ireland  four  thousand  Protestant 
Hessians,  and  the  Irish  Parliament  had  the  grace  to 
refuse  the  Plessians.  They  said  ^^  No  !  If  the  coun- 
try is  in  danger  we  can  arm  some  of  our  Protestant 
people,  and  they  can  keep  the  peace." 

Out  of  this  sprang  the  **  Volunteers  of  '82."  Mr. 
Froude  has  little  or  nothing  to  say  of  them,  conse- 
quently, as  I  am  answering,  or  trying  to  answer  him,  I 
must  restrict  also  their  record.  Ireland,  in  1776,  be- 
gan to  arm.  This  movement  was  altogether  a  Protest- 
ant one,  and  confined  to  the  North.  The  Catholics 
of  Ireland  were  ground,  as  it  were,  into  the  very  dust. 
No  sooner,  however,  did  the  Catholics  hear  that  their 


Gr  at  tan  and  the  Volunteers,  183 

Protestant  oppressors  were  anxious  to  do  something 
for  the  old  land,  than  they  came  and  said  to  them, 
*'  We  will  forgive  everything  you  have  done  to  us  ;  we 
will  leave  you  the  land  of  Ireland,  the  wealth  and 
the  commerce ;  all  we  ask  of  you  is  to  let  us  help  you 
for  our  common  country."  At  first  they  were  refused, 
and,  my  friends,  when  they  found  they  would  not  be 
allowed  to  enter  the  ranks  of  the  Volunteers,  they  had 
the  generosity,  out  of  their  poverty,  to  collect  money 
and  hand  it  over  to  clothe  the  army  of  their  Protest- 
ant fellow-citizens.  Anything  for  Ireland.  Anything 
for  the  man  that  would  lift  his  hand  up  for  Ireland, 
no  matter  what  his  religion  was.  The  old  generous 
spirit  was  there  ;  the  love  that  never  could  be  extin- 
guished was  there ;  self-sacrificing  as  of  old  ;  aye,  the 
strong  love  for  any  man,  no  matter  who  he  was,  that 
was  a  friend  of  their  native  land. 

But  after  a  time  our  Protestant  friends  in  the  Volun- 
teers began  to  think  that  these  Catholics,  after  all,  were 
fine,  strapping  fellows.  Somehow,  centuries  of  per- 
secution could  not  knock  the  manhood  out  of  them. 
*'  They  be  strong  men,"  says  an  old  writer, ''  and  can  bear 
more  of  hard  living,  hunger,  and  thirst,  than  any  other 
people  that  we  know  of."  God  knows  their  capabili- 
ties of  enduring  nakedness,  hunger,  and  thirst,  and 
every  other  form  of  misery,  were  well  tested  ? 

Accordingly,  we  find  that  in  1780  there  were  fifty 
thousand  Catholics  amongst  the  Volunteers — every 
man  of  them  with  arms  in  his  hands.  Mr.  Froude 
says  that  Grattan — the  immortal  Grattan — that  whilst 


184  Lecture  IV. 

he  wished  well  for  Ireland — that  whilst  he  was  irre- 
proachable in  every  wny,  public  or  private — that  at  this 
time  he  was  guilty  of  a  great  mistake.  England, 
says  the  historian,  had  long  ruled  Ireland  badly,  but 
had  learned  a  lesson  from  America,  and  she  was  now* 
anxious  to  govern  Ireland  well,  and  no  sooner  was  an 
abuse  pointed  out  than  it  was  immediately  remedied, 
and  if  just  laws  were  wanted  they  were  immediately 
granted  ;  and  the  mistake  Grattan  made  was  that  instead 
of  insisting  on  just  legislation  from  England,  he  insisted 
for  the  legitimate  independence  of  Ireland  ;  that  the 
Irish  should  have  the  making  of  their  own  laws.  Thus, 
according  to  Mr.  Froude,  the  energies  of  the  nation, 
which  were  wasted  in  political  contention,  could  have 
been  husbanded  to  induce  England  to  grant  just  and 
fair  laws.  But  he  goes  on  the  assumption,  my  dear 
American  friends  and  others — the  gentleman  goes  on 
the  assumption  that  England  was  willing  to  redress 
grievances,  to  repeal  the  bad  laws  and  make  good  ones, 
and  he  proves  this  assertion  by  saying  **  that  she  struck 
off  of  the  wrists  of  the  Irish  merchants  the  chains  of 
their  commercial  slavery,  and  that  she  restored  to  Ire- 
land her  trade."  You  remember  that  this  trade  was 
taken  away  from  them  :  the  woollen  trade,  and  nearly 
every  other  form  of  trade  was  discountenanced  or 
ruined. 

Now,  I  wish  for  the  sake  of  the  honor  of  England 
that  she  was  as  generous,  or  even  as  just,  as  Mr.  Froude 
represents  her,  and  as  he  no  doubt  would  wish  her  to 
be ;  but  we  have  the  fact  before  us  that  in  1779,  when 


Grattan  and  the  Volufiteers,  185 

a  movement  was  made  to  repeal  the  laws  restricting 
the  commerce  of  Ireland,  the  English  Parliament,  the 
English  King,  the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  and 
the  English  Government  opposed  it  to  the  very  death. 
They  would  not  have  it — not  one  fetter  would  they 
strike  off  from  the  chain  that  encumbered  even  the 
Protestants  and  the  planters  of  Ireland.  And  it  was 
only  when  Grattan  rose  up  in  the  Irish  Parliament  and 
insisted  that  Ireland  should  get  back  her  trade — it  was 
only  then  that  England  consented  —  because  there 
were  fifty  thousand  armed  Volunteers  outside. 

The  state  of  Ireland  at  the  time  is  thus  described : 
"  Such  is  the  state  of  the  Constitution  that  three  mil- 
lions of  good,  faithful  subjects  in  their  native  land  are 
excluded  from  every  trust,  power,  and  emolument  in 
the  state,  civil  and  military  ;  excluded  from  all  cor- 
porate rights  and  immunities ;  excluded  from  grand 
juries,  and  restrained  in  petty  juries  ;  excluded  in  every 
direction  from  every  trust,  from  every  incorporated 
society,  and  from  every  establishment,  occasional  or 
fixed,  that  was  instituted  for  public  defense ;  from  the 
bank,  from  the  bench,  from  the  exchange,  from  the 
university,  from  the  college  of  physicians — from 
what  were  they  not  excluded  ? "  asks  the  writer. 
"  There  is  no  institution  which  the  wit  of  man  has  in- 
vented, or  the  progress  of  society  has  produced,  which 
private  charity  or  public  munificence  has  founded  for 
the  advancement  of  education  around  us,  for  the  per- 
manent relief  of  age,  infirmity,  and  misfortune,  from 
the  participation  of  the  benefits  of  which,  on  all  occa- 


1 86  Lecture  IV, 

slons,  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  were  not  carefully  ex- 
cluded." 

Grattan  rose  up  in  the  Senate,  and,  lifting  up  his 
heroic  hand  and  voice  to  heaven,  he  swore  before  the 
God  of  justice  that  this  should  come  to  an  end.  The%. 
English  Government  heard  him  with  a  determination 
as  great  as  that  of  the  Irish  patriot,  and  swore  equally 
that  this  should  remain  the  law.  Was  it  not  time  to 
assert  for  Ireland  her  independence?  Mr.  Froude 
claims  that  England  willingly  consented  to  give  up  the 
restrictions  on  Irish  commerce  when  Grattan  proposed 
it  in  the  House.  An  official  of  the  government,  named 
Hussey  Burgh,  rose  up,  to  the  astonishment  of  the 
government,  and  seconded  Grattan^s  resolution,  to  the 
rage  and  consternation  of  the  government  factions,  as 
was  shown  by  the  unequivocal  demonstration  of  the 
executive  of  the  ministerial  bench.  Hussey  Burgh 
was  one  of  the  most  fascinating  men  of  the  day ;  he, 
of  whom  it  was  thought  patriotism  was  impossible, 
moved  ^*That  we  take  up  the  question,  and  represent 
to  his  Majesty  that  it  was  not  by  any  temporary  ex- 
pedients, but  by  free  trade  alone,  that  this  nation  is 
now  to  be  saved  from  impending  ruin." 

While  they  were  fighting  the  government  within, 
Grattan  took  good  care  to  have  the  Volunteers  drawn 
out  in  the  streets  of  Dublin — there  they  were  in  their 
thousands — armed  men,  drilled  men — and  they  had 
their  cannons  with  them,  and  about  the  mouths  of  the 
guns  they  had  tied  a  label,  or  card,  with  these  words  : 
*^  Free  Trade  for  Ireland,  or  else ." 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers.  187 

So  it  happened  that  Lord  North  was  obh'ged,  greatly 
against  his  will,  to  introduce  measures  to  restore  to 
Ireland  her  trade.  Now,  I  ask,  was  not  Henry  Grat- 
tan justified,  seeing  that  it  was  only  at  the  cannon's 
mouth  he  could  obtain  justice  from  the  Parliament  of 
England,  when  he  said :  *^  This  English  Parliament 
will  never  do  us  justice,  and,  in  the  name  of  God,  now 
that  we  have  our  men  armed  around  us,  let  us  demand 
for  Ireland  the  perfect  independence  of  the  people 
from  the  Parliament  of  England,  and  the  right  to  make 
whatever  laws  that  are  most  conducive  to  the  welfare 
of  our  own  people." 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  Grattan  failed  ;  it  is  perfectly 
true  that  although  that  declaration  of  independence 
was  proclaimed  by  law,  and,  as  Mr.  Froude  observes, 
'*  Home  Rule  was  tried  in  Ireland  from  '82  to  '99,  and 
it  was  a  failure  " — all  this  is  true  ;  but  why  was  it  so, 
my  friends  ?  Reflect  upon  this  ;  the  Irish  Parliament 
did  not  represent  the  nation.  The  Irish  Parliament 
consisted  of  three  hundred  members,  and  of  these 
three  hundred  there  were  only  seventy-two  that  were 
elected  by  the  people  ;  all  the  others  were  '*  nomination 
boroughs,"  as  they  were  called.  Certain  great  lords, 
barons,  and  noblemen  had  three  or  four  little  towns  on 
their  estates,  which  towns  returned  a  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment ;  and  the  poor  people  who  had  the  votes  were  at 
the  mercy  of  the  landlord,  who  made  the  regular  ^^  nomi- 
nations," and  put  up  whom  he  desired,  and  the  peo- 
ple were  compelled  to  vote  for  him  or  suffer  the  con- 
sequences.    Just  as,  in  the  Protestant  church,  when- 


1 88  Lecture  IV, 

ever  a  bishop  dies,  the  queen  comes  and  writes  to  the 
clergy  and  says  :  You  .vill  name  such  a  one  for  bishop — 
and  then  they  elect  him.  Even  the  seventy-two  who 
were  in  some  sense  representatives  of  the  people, 
whom  did  they  represent  ?  There  were  nearly  threes- 
millions  of  Irishmen  in  Ireland,  men  of  intellect  and 
of  education,  in  spite  of  all  the  laws  that  were  made 
against  schools  and  colleges  for  Catholics  ;  there  were 
nearly  three  millions  of  Irish  Catholics  in  the  land, 
and  not  a  man  of  them  had  a  vote  even  for  a  Member 
of  Parliament.  And,  therefore,  this  wretched  parlia- 
ment, that  only  represented  one-tenth  of  the  nation, 
if  it  was  venal  and  corrupt,  is  no  disgrace  to  the  Irish 
people,  and  is  no  argument  or  imputation  that  they 
did  not  know  how  to  govern  themselves. 

Meantime,  the  Volunteers  made  the  most  tremen- 
dous mistake, •and  that  was  by  letting  Catholics  in 
amongst  their  ranks.  Here  I  have  my  Lord  Sheffield. 
Here  is  what  he  says  : — it  will  give  you  clearly  to 
understand,  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  America,  how  the 
English  people  looked  upon  us  Irish  one  hundred 
years  ago ;  indeed,  according  to  Cobbett,  one  of  their 
most  distinguished  writers,  this  was  how  they  looked 
upon  you,  until  you  taught  them  with  the  sword 
to  look  upon  you  with  more  respect  :  ^'  It  is 
now  necessary,"  says  Lord  Sheffield,  *'  to  go  back  to 
the  year  1778,  to  take  notice  of  a  phenomenon  which 
began  to  appear  at  that  time ;  it  is  a  wonderful 
thing.*'  What  was  it?  *' The  like  has  never  been 
seen  in  any   country,    at  least    where    there  was    an 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers.  1 89 

established  government.  To  describe  it :  it  is  an 
army  unauthorized  by  the  law,  and  unnatural ;  and 
generally  known  by  the  name  of  the  Volunteers  of 
Ireland.  The  arms  issued  from  the  public  stores 
were  insufficient  to  supply  the  rapid  increase  of  the 
Volunteers;  the  rest  were  procured  by  themselves, 
and  the  necessary  accoutrements,  with  a  considerable 
number  of  field-pieces.  The  Opposition  in  England 
speak  highly  of  them ;  and  the  supporters  of  the  gov- 
ernment in  both  countries  mention  them  with  civility.'* 
(It  is  not  easy  to  be  uncivil  to  an  army  of  ninety-five 
thousand  men.)  "  The  wonderful  efforts  of  England  in 
America  were,  somehow  or  other,  wasted  to  no  pur- 
pose." The  wonderful  efforts  of  England  in  America 
were  wasted  to  no  purpose !  There  happened  to  be  a 
man  in  the  way,  and  that  man  was  George  Washington. 
He  goes  on  to  speak  of  the  Volunteers.  The  **  many- 
headed  monster,*'  as  he  calls  it,  *^  now  began  to  think  it 
would  be  proper  to  reform  the  State  and  to  purge  the 
Parliament  of  Ireland."  Henry  Grattan  said,  *'I  will 
never  claim  freedom  for  six  hundred  thousand  of  my 
countrymen  while  I  leave  two  million  or  more  of  them 
in  chains.  Give  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  their  civil 
rights  and  their  franchise  ;  give  them  the  power  to 
return  members  to  the  Irish  Parliament,  and  let  the 
nation  be  represented  ;  put  an  end  to  the  rotten 
nomination  boroughs  ;  let  the  members  represent  the 
people  truly,  and  you  will  have  reformed  your  Parlia- 
ment, and  you  will  have  established  for  ever  the  lib- 
erties which  the  Volunteers  have  won." 


190  Lecture  IV, 

This  was  what  the  Volunteers  wanted  ;  and  for  this 
they  got,  from  my  Lord  Sheffield,  the  very  genteel 
name  of  **  the  many-headed  monster."  But  they  did 
something  still  more  strange  than  this.  ''  So  far,"  he 
says,  "•  everything  went  on  as  might  have  been** 
expected.  But  there  is  another  part  of  their  con- 
duct neither  natural  nor  rational.  Some  of  the  corps, 
for  the  purpose  of  increasing  their  numbers,  perhaps,  or 
possibly  without  consideration,  admitted  Roman  Cath- 
olics." (They  must  have  been  mad.  They  did  it  ^'  with- 
out consideration.")  *'  And  others,  perhaps,  enrolled 
them  latterly  for  the  sake  of  acquiring  numbers  and 
strength  to  force  a  reform  of  the  government  from  Eng- 
land " — (to  force  a  reform  which  the  government  of  Eng- 
land would  never  permit,  because  she  wanted  to  have  a 
rotten  parliament  to  her  hand,  and  through  that  parlia- 
ment to  destroy  the  country.)  '*  Well,  but  that  Protest- 
ants should  allow  and  encourage  this  also,  and  form  a 
whole  corps  of  Roman  Catholics,  when  all  Europe  was 
at  peace,  is  scarcely  to  be  believed — above  all,  in  view 
of  their  number.  It  has  become  the  system  of  the 
Roman  Catholics  to  enroll  as  many  as  possible,  par- 
ticularly since  the  peace  of  last  summer ;  and  there  is 
nothing  unequivocal  in  this.  Already,  perhaps  five 
thousand  of  these  are  in  arms,  and  in  a  year  or  less 
they  may  be  ten  thousand.  All  the  Protestants  are 
gradually  quitting  the  service  ;  and  the  only  Protest- 
ants are  those  who  continue  since  the  peace,  in  order 
to  prevent  the  Volunteer  arms  from  falling  into  more 
dangerous  hands,  and    to   counterbalance  the   Cath- 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers.  191 

olics."  Then  he  goes  on  to  say:  *'They  are  many. 
If  they  were  only  one-fifth,  instead  of  four-fiftlis,  of 
the  people,  the  writer  of  this  observation  would  be  the 
last  man  to  suggest  a  difficulty  about  their  being  ad- 
mitted into  power,  or  every  right  or  advantage  given 
to  them.  But  they  do  not  forget  the  situation  in 
which  their  ancestors  have  been.  They  are  not  blind 
to  what  they  might  acquire.  Persevering  for  upwards 
of  two  centuries  under  every  discouragement,  under 
every  severity,  subjected  to  every  disadvantage,  does 
not  prove  an  indifference  to  the  principles  of  their  re- 
ligion. Thinking  as  they  do,  feeling  as  they  do,  be- 
lieving as  they  do,  they  would  not  be  men  if  they  did 
not  wish  for  a  change.  Nor  would  Protestants  be 
worthy  of  the  designation  of  reasonable  creatures  if 
they  did  not  take  precautions  to  prevent  it." 

Thus,  it  is  to  this  fact  that  the  English  Government 
steadily  opposed  reform,  that  they  would  not  hear 
of  reform — because  they  wanted  to  have  a  venal,  cor- 
rupt, miserable  seventy-two  in  their  hands, — it  is  to 
this  fact,  and  not  to  any  mistake  of  Grattan,  that  we 
owe  the  collapse  of  that  magnificent  revolutionary 
movement  of  the  ''  Irish  Volunteers." 

Well,  England  now  adopted  another  policy.  We 
have  evidence  of  it.  As  soon  as  William  Pitt  came 
into  office  as  Premier,  his  first  thought  was — ^^  I  will 
put  an  end  to  this  Irish  difficulty?  I  will  have  no 
more  laws  made  in  Ireland,  for  Irishmen.  I  will  unite 
the  two  parliaments  into  one,  and  will  not  leave  Ire- 
land   a  single  shadow   of    legislative  independence." 


192  Lecture  IV, 

This  being  the  programme,  how  was  it  to  be  worked 
out  ?  Mr.  Froude  says,  or  seems  to  say,  that  ^'  the 
Rebellion  of  '98  was  one  of  those  outbursts  of  Irish 
ungovernable  passion  and  of  Irish  inconstancy,  accom- 
panied by  cowardice  and  by  treachery,  with  which** 
(according  to  him)  *^  we  are  all  so  familiar  in  the  his-  . 
tory  of  Ireland."  Now,  I  have  a  different  account  of 
'98.  Mr.  Froude  says  that  **  the  rebellion  arose  out 
of  the  disturbance  of  men*s  minds  created  by  the 
French  Revolution  ;  '*  and,  ind*eed,  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  truth  in  this.  The  French  Revolution  set  all 
the  world  in  a  blaze,  and  the  flame  spread,  no  doubt, 
to  Ireland. 

Mr.  Froude  goes  on  to  say  that  **  the  Irish  Govern- 
ment were  so  hampered  by  this  free  parliament,  this 
parliament  of  Grattan's,  that  although  they  saw  the 
danger  approaching,  they  could  not  avert  it: — their 
hands  were  bound  ;  nay,  more,"  he  adds,  *'  the  gov- 
ernment, bound  by  constitutional  law,  and  by  parlia- 
ment, could  not  touch  one  of  the  United  Irishmen  un- 
til they  had  first  committed  themselves  by  some  overt 
act  of  treason  ;  in  other  words,  until  they  had  first  risen." 

Now,  according  to  this  historian,  there  was  nothing 
done  to  molest,  slay,  or  persecute  the  people  of  Ireland 
until  they  rose  in  arms  in  '98,  My  friends,  the  rising 
of  1798  took  place  on  the  23d  of  May.  On  that  day 
the  ^^  United  Irishmen"  rose.  I  ask  you  now  to  con- 
sider whether  the  government  had  any  share  in  that 
rising,  or  in  creating  that  rebellion  ? 

As  early  as   1797,  the  country  was  beginning  to  be 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers,  193 

disturbed,  according  to  Mr.  Froude ;  and,  during  the 
first  three  months  of  January,  February,  and  March, 
in  '98,  we  find  Lord  Moira  giving  his  testimony  as  to 
the  action  of  the  English  Government.  "  My  Lords," 
he  says,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  *^  I  have  seen  in  Ire- 
land the  most  absurd,  as  well  as  the  most  disgusting 
tyranny,  that  any  nation  ever  groaned  under.  I  have 
been  myself  a  witness  of  it  in  many  instances  ;  I  have 
seen  it  practiced  unchecked,  and  the  effects  that  have 
resulted  from  it  have  been  such  as  I  have  stated  to 
your  lordships.  I  have  seen  in  that  country  a  marked 
distinction  between  the  English  and  the  Irish.  I  have 
seen  troops  that  have  been  sent  there  full  of  this  pre- 
judice— that  every  inhabitant  of  that  kingdom  is  a  reb- 
el to  the  British  Government."  Troops  were  sent  there 
before  the  rebellion,  and  told — "  every  man  you  meet 
is  a  rebel."  ^'  I  have  seen  most  wanton  insults  prac- 
ticed upon  men  of  all  ranks  and  conditions." 

They  sent  their  thousands  into  Ireland  in  prepara- 
tion for  the  rebellion  ;  they  had,  between  Welsh  and 
Scotch  and  Hessian  regiments,  and  between  English 
and  Irish  militia,  an  army  of  one  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  men  prepared  for  the  work  ;  and  in  this  way 
they  goaded  the  people  on  to  rebellion.  The  rack,  in- 
deed, was  not  at  hand,  but  the  punishment  of  ''  picket- 
ing "  was  in  practice,  which  had  been  for  some  years 
abolished  as  too  inhuman  even  for  the  treatment  of 
savages. 

Lord  Moira  goes  on  to  say  that  he  had  known  of  a 
man  who,   in    order   to   extort   confession   of  a  crime 

9 


194  Lecture  IV. 

from  him,  was  '*  picketed  '*  until  he  actually  fainted 
(**  picketing  *'  meant  putting  them  on  the  point  of  a 
stake  upon  one  foot),  *^  and  picketed  a  second  time  un- 
til hf  fainted  again  ;  and  again,  as  soon  as  he  came  to 
himself,  picketed  the  third  time  until  he  fainted  once  *• 
more,  and  all  this  on  mere  suspicion/* 

Not  only  was  this  punishment  used,  but  every  spe- 
cies of  torture.  Men  were  taken  and  hung  up  until 
they  were  half  dead,  and  then  threatened  with  a  repe- 
tition of  the  cruel  torture  unless  they  made  confession 
of  imputed  guilt.  They  sent  their  soldiers  into  the 
country,  and  quartered  them  at  what  was  called  "  free 
quarters/*  The  English  yeomanry  and  the  Orange 
yeomanry  of  Ireland  lived  upon  the  people  ;  they  vio- 
lated the  women,  they  killed  the  aged,  they  plundered 
the  houses,  they  set  fire  to  the  villages,  they  exercised 
every  form  of  torture  the  most  terrible — this  terrible 
soldiery.  All  this  took  place  before  a  single  rising  in 
Ireland,  before  the  rebellion  of  '98  sprung  up  at  all. 
We  had  a  brave  and  gallant  man  sent  to  Ireland  at 
that  time — Sir  Ralph  Abercrombie ;  and  he  declared 
he  was  so  frightened  and  disgusted  at  the  conduct  of 
the  soldiers  that  he  threw  up  his  commission,  and  re- 
fused to  take  the  command  of  the  forces  in  Ireland. 
He  issued  a  general  order  in  February,  ^98 — the  rebel- 
lion did  not  begin  until  May — he  began  his  general 
order  with  these  words  :  *^  The  very  disgraceful  fre- 
quency of  great  cruelties  and  crimes,  and  the  many 
complaints  of  the  conduct  of  the  troops  in  this  kingdom, 
has  too  unfortunately  proved  the  army  to  be  in  a  state 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers.  195 

of  licentiousness  that  renders  it  formidable  to  every- 
one, except  the  enemy.**  Then  he  threw  up  his  commis- 
sion in  disgust ;  and  General  Lake  was  sent  to  command 
in  Ireland.  He  says  :  "  The  state  of  the  country  and 
its  occupation  previous  to  the  insurrection,  is  not  to  be 
imagined,  except  by  those  who  witnessed  the  atrocities 
of  every  description  committed  by  the  military  and  the 
Orangemen,  that  were  let  loose  upon  the  unfortunate 
and  defenseless  population."  Then  he  gives  a  long 
list  of  terrible  hangings,  burnings,  and  murderings.  We 
read  that  *'at  Dunlavin,  in  the  county  of  Wicklow," 
previous  to  the  rising,  "•  thirty-four  men  were  shot  with- 
out any  trial."  But  it  is  useless  to  enumerate  or  con- 
tinue the  list  of  cruelties  perpetrated.  It  will  suffice 
to  say  that  where  the  military  were  placed  on  free 
quarters  all  kinds  of  crimes  were  committed  ;  but  the 
people  were  no  worse  off  than  those  living  where  no 
soldiers  were  quartered  ;  for  in  the  latter  places  the  in- 
habitants were  called  to  their  doors  and  shot  without 
ceremony,  and  every  house  was  plundered  or  burned. 
Nay,  more  !  We  have  Mr.  Emmet,  in  his  examination, 
giving  his  evidence,  and  declaring  that  it  was  the  fault 
of  the  government,  this  Rebellion  of  ^qS.  The  Lord 
Chancellor  put  the  following  question  to  Mr.  Emmet : 
"  Pray,  Mr.  Emmet," — this  was  in  August,  '98 — **  what 
caused  the  late  insurrection?"  to  which  Mr.  Emmet 
replied,  *'  Free  quarters,  house-burnings,  tortures,  and 
all  the  military  executions  in  the  counties  of  Kildare, 
Carlow,  and  Wicklow."  Before  the  insurrection  broke 
out,    numbers    of   houses,    with    their    furniture,   in 


196  Lecture  IV. 

which  concealed  arms  had  been  found,  were  demolished. 
Numbers  of  people  v/ere  daily  scourged,  picketed, 
and  otherwise  put  to  death,  to  force  confession  of  con- 
cealed crime  or  plots.  Outrageous  acts  of  severity  were 
often  committed,  even  by  persons  not  in  the  regular  •• 
troops.  And  we  have  the  evidence  of  the  brave  Sir  John 
Moore,  the  hero  of  Corunna.  He  was  in  Ireland  at  the 
time,  in  military  command,  and  he  bears  this  testimony. 
Speaking  of  Wicklow,  the  very  hotbed  of  the  insurrec- 
tion, he  says,  that  **  moderate  treatment  by  the  gene- 
rals, and  the  preventing  of  the  troops  from  pillaging 
and  molesting  the  people,  would  soon  restore  tranquil- 
lity ;  the  latter  would  certainly  be  quiet  if  the  yeomanry 
would  behave  with  tolerable  decency,  and  not  seek 
to  gratify  their  ill-humor  and  revenge  upon  the  poor." 

We  have  the  testimony  of  Sir  William  Napier,  not 
an  Irishman,  but  a  brave  English  soldier,  saying, ''  What 
manner  of  soldiers  were  these  fellows  who  were  let 
loose  upon  the  wretched  districts  in  which  the  Ascend- 
ency were  placed,  killing,  burning,  and  confiscating 
every  man's  property  ;  and,  to  use  the  venerable  Aber- 
crombie's  words,  *  they  were  formidable  to  everybody 
but  the  enemy.'  We  ourselves  were  young  at  the 
time  ;  yet,  being  connected  with  the  army,  we  were 
continually  among  the  soldiers,  listening  with  boyish 
eagerness  to  their  experiences  :  and  well  we  remember, 
with  horror,  to  this  day,  the  tales  of  lust,  of  bloodshed, 
and  pillage,  and  the  recital  of  their  foul  actions  against 
the  miserable  peasantry,  which  they  used  to  relate." 

I  ask  you,  in  all  this  goading  of  the  people  into  re- 


Grattan  and  the  Volunteers.  197 

belHon,  who  was  accountable  if  not  the  infamous  gov- 
ernment which,  at  the  time,  ruled  the  destinies  of  Ire- 
land ?  I  ask  you,  are  the  Irish  people  accountable, 
if  from  time  to  time  the  myrmidons  of  England  have 
been  let  loose  upon  them,  ravaging  them  like  tigers, 
violating  every  instinct  of  Irish  love  of  land,  of  Irish 
purity,  of  Irish  faith  ?  Is  it  not  a  terrible  thing  that, 
after  all  these  provocations,  which  they  deliberately 
put  before  the  people,  in  order  to  goad  them  into  the 
rebellion  of  '98,  and  so  prepare  the  way  for  that  union 
of  1800  which  followed  that,  Mr.  Froude  says: 
"  Several  hot-headed  priests  put  themselves  at  the 
head  of  their  people."  There  was  a  Father  John 
Murphy  in  the  county  of  Wexford.  He  came  home 
from  his  duties  one  day,  to  find  the  houses  of  the  poor 
people  around  sacked  and  burned ;  to  find  his  unfor- 
tunate parishioners  huddled  about  the  blackened  walls 
of  the  chapel,  crying  :  ^*  Soggarth  dear,  what  are  we  to 
do  ?  where  are  we  to  fly  from  this  terrible  persecution 
that  has  come  upon  us  ?  "  And  Father  John  Murphy 
got  the  pikes,  put  them  in  their  hands,  and  put  himself 
at  their  head  !  So  you  see,  my  friends,  there  are  two 
sides  to  every  story. 

My  friends,  I  have  endeavored  to  give  you  some 
portions  of  the  Irish  side  of  the  story,  basing  my  testi- 
mony upon  the  records  of  Protestant  and  English 
writers,  and  upon  the  testimony  which  I  have  been  so 
proud  to  put  before  you,  of  noble,  generous,  American 
gentlemen.  I  have  to  apologize  for  the  dryness  of  the 
subject,  and  the   imperfect  manner  in  which  I  have 


198  Lecture  IV. 

treated  it,  and  also  for  the  unconscionable  length  of 
time  in  which  I  have  tried  your  patience.  On  next 
Tuesday  evening  we  shall  be  approaching  ticklish 
ground : — "  Ireland  since  the  Union  ;**  Ireland  as  she 
is  to-day ;  and  Ireland,  as  my  heart  and  brain  tell  me 
she  shall  be  in  some  future  day. 


LECTURE  V. 

IRELAND   SINCE  THE 
UNION. 


Mr.  Froude  Opens  his  fifth  and  last  lecture  by- 
stating  that  the  Irish  left  the  paths  of  practical  reform, 
and  clamored  for  political  agitation.  Now,  I  am  quite 
as  much  opposed  to  political  agitation  as  Mr.  Froude. 
I  regard  it  as  an  evil,  distracting  men's  minds  from  the 
more  important  and  necessary  duties  of  life,  withdraw- 
ing their  attention  from  business,  and  the  sober  pur- 
suit of  industry,  creating  animosities  and  bad  blood 
between  citizens,  affording  an  easy  and  profitable  em- 
ployment to  many  a  worthless  demagogue,  and  frequent- 
ly (in  fact,  in  most  cases)  bringing  to  the  surface  the 
worst  and  meanest  elements  of  society.  But  we  must 
not  forget  that  political  agitation,  with  all  these  draw- 
backs, is  the  only  resource  of  a  people  who  endeavor 
to  obtain  just  laws  from  an  unwilling  government. 
What  were  the  struggles  of  the  seventeenth  century 
in  France,  Germany,  and  the  Low  Countries,  with 
which  Mr.  Froude  sympathises  so  deeply,  but   politi- 


200  Lecture  V. 

cal  agitation,  deepening  into  the  form  of  armed  revolt, 
in  order  to  extort  from  the  various  governments  just 
measures  of  toleration  and  liberty  of  conscience.  For 
these  and  such  as  these,  Mr.  Froude  has  words  of  ad- 
miration and  sympathy,  although  the  people  in  arms 
were  really  innovators,  seeking  to  destroy  a  state  of 
things  established  for  ages;  but  for  the  Irish,  merely 
standing  on  the  defensive  against  an  innovating  and 
revolutionary  government,  and  seeking  to  preserve, 
not  freedom,  for  that  was  already  gone,  but  land,  life, 
conscience,  and  their  ancient  creed,  this  learned  gen- 
tleman has  no  words  but  reproof,  condemnation,  and 
disdain.  In  1780  the  Irish  people,  mostly  the  Protest- 
ant portion  of  them,  labored  for  the  repeal  of  certain 
laws,  restricting  and  annihilating  the  trade  and  indus- 
try of  the  people.  Was  England  willing  to  grant  this 
measure  of  justice?  Was  she  only  anxious,  as  Mr. 
Froude  says,  to  remedy  every  evil  as  soon  as  it  was 
pointed  out  ?  I  ansAver  No,  and  my  proof  lies  here  ; 
that  free  trade,  as  it  was  called,  was  extorted  and 
forced  from  the  government  by  the  presence  of  fifty 
thousand  armed  Volunteers,  who  planted  their  cannon 
in  the  streets  of  Dublin  and  attached  to  each  gun  the 
significant  label  "  Free  Trade  or "  If  every  meas- 
ure of  just  legislation  was  only  to  be  obtained  by  such 
means  as  these,  the  country  would  of  necessity  be  kept 
in  a  state  of  perpetual  revolution.  What  wonder,  then, 
that  the  Irish  thought  with  Henry  Grattan,  that  it 
would  be  better  to  have  their  own  parliament,  free  and 
independent  of   that  of  England,  to  legislate  for  the 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  201 

wants  and  interests  of  their  own  country.  Thus  we 
see  that  the  action  of  1782  was  the  result,  not  of  the 
love  of  the  Irish  people  for  political  agitation,  but  of 
Ireland's  well-founded  conviction  that  she  never  could 
expect  or  obtain  just  and  salutary  legislation  except 
from  her  own  parliament,  free  and  independent.  It  is 
true  that  this  independent  Irish  parliament  failed  to 
realize  the  hopes  of  the  Irish  nation,  and  Mr.  Froude 
accounts  for  it  by  saying  that  the  Irish  are  incapable  of 
home  legislation.  I  say  that  the  cause  of  this  failure  lay 
in  the  fact  that  the  parliament  of  eighty-two  did  not 
represent  the  nation  at  all.  Nearly  three  millions  of 
Irishmen,  the  vast  majority  of  the  people,  were  unrep- 
resented. They  had  not  even  a  vote  for  a  single  mem- 
ber of  that  parliament,  which  represented  about  half 
a  million  of  Protestant  strangers,  English  and  Scotch, 
who  had  recently  settled  in  Ireland.  But  even  these 
men  were  not  fairly  represented,  as  the  constitution  of 
the  parliament  will  prove.  The  House  of  Commons 
was  made  up  of  three  hundred  members.  Of  these 
only  seventy-two  were  elected  by  the  people.  The 
rest  represented  rotten  or  nomination  boroughs,  and 
were  the  mere  nominees,  and  consequently  the  agents, 
of  certain  great  lords  and  extensive  landed  proprietors. 
Had  the  nation  been  represented  they  would  have 
solved  the  problem  of  home  rule  in  favor  of  Ireland, 
despite  the  corruption  which  must  always  be  found  in 
large  assemblies.  The  Irish  people  knew  this,  and 
loudly  proclaimed  that  the  parliament  should  be  re- 
formed on  the  basis  of  a  truly  national  representation  ; 


202  Lecture  V. 

the  volunteers  cried  out  for  reform,  and  at  their  first 
meeting  at  Dungannon  they  decided,  to  their  honor, 
that  every  Irishman  had  a  right  to  be  represented. 
The  United  Irishmen,  who  in  the  beginning  were  not 
a  secret  society,  laid  down  as  their  fundamental  prin- 
ciples the  three  following  resolutions  :  1st,  That  the 
weight  of  English  influence  in  the  government  of 
this  country  is  so  great  as  to  require  a  cordial  union 
among  all  the  people  of  Ireland,  to  maintain  that  bal- 
ance which  is  essential  to  the  preservation  of  our  liber- 
ties, and  the  extension  of  our  commerce.  2d,  That 
the  sole  constitutional  mode  by  which  this  influence 
can  be  opposed,  is  by  a  complete  and  radical  reform  of 
the  representation  of  the  people  in  parliament.  3d,  That 
no  reform  is  just  which  does  not  include  every  Irish- 
man of  every  religious  persuasion.  Who  opposed  and 
hindered  the  reform  which  would  have  made  the  Irish 
parliament  a  truly  representative  body  instead  of  the 
hideous  sham  of  a  corrupt  party  clique,  as  it  was  ?  I 
answer,  the  government  of  England.  On  the  29th  of 
November,  1783,  Mr.  Flood  introduced  into  the  Irish 
Parliament  a  bill  of  reform.  Who  led  the  opposition 
to  it  ?  Mr.  Yelverton,  the  Attorney-General  of  the  gov- 
ernment, gave  the  idea  of  a  reform  of  parliament  aii 
official  opposition.  The  vote  was  secured  by  corrupting 
the  venal  members,  and  the  bill  was  thrown  out  by  a  di- 
vision of  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  seventy-seven.  The 
Attorney-General  then  moved  **  That  it  had  now  be- 
come necessary  to  declare  that  the  House  would  main- 
tain its  just  rights  and  privileges  against  all  encroach- 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  203 

ments  whatsoever.**  Their  just  rights  and  privileges 
being  to  represent  a  faction,  and  to  exclude  from  all  rep- 
resentation five-sixths  of  the  people  of  Ireland.  *^  From 
agitation  grew  conspiracy/'  says  Mr.  Froude,  ^'  and  from 
conspiracy  rebellion."  In  these  words  the  historian  al- 
ludes to  the  Society  of  United  Irishmen,  out  of  which 
grew  the  Rebellion  of  '98.  I  have  shown,  on  the  evi- 
dence of  such  men  as  Sir  Ralph  Abercrombie  and  Sir 
John  Moore,  that  the  rebellion  of '98  was  mainly  the  work 
of  the  English  Government.  We  have  also  seen  that 
the  United  Irishmen  were,  in  the  beginning,  far  from 
being  a  secret  society  or  conspiracy.  But  the  principle 
on  which  they  were  founded,  was  ^^  Union  amongst  all 
Irishmen,"  and  this  was  enough  to  alarm  the  govern- 
ment, whose  policy  it  has  ever  been  to  rule  Ireland 
through  the  divisions  amongst  her  people.  England's 
Premier,  therefore,  Wm.  Pitt,  resolved  to  disarm  the 
Volunteers  (who  were  doomed  from  the  moment  they 
fraternized  with  the  Catholics,  and  admitted  them  into 
their  ranks),  to  force  the  United  Irishmen  to  become  a 
secret  conspiracy,  and  to  bring  on,  through  them,  a  re- 
bellion in  Ireland.  The  first  of  these  designs  he  ac- 
complished by  raising  the  standing  army  to  fifteen 
thousand  men,  in  1785,  and  by  obtaining  a  grant  of 
;£"20,ooo  to  clothe  and  organize  the  militia.  The  second 
was  achieved  in  1793,  by  the  passing  of  the  gunpow- 
der and  convention  bills.  A  public  meeting  of  United 
Irishmen  was  held  in  Dublin  in  February,  1793,  to  pro- 
test against  the  inquisitorial  and  tyrannical  nature  of 
certain  proceedings  of  the  secret  committee  of  the 


204  Lecture  V. 

House  of  Lords.  For  this  the  Honorable  Mr.  Butler, 
who  presided  at  the  meeting,  and  Mr.  Oliver  Bond, 
who  acted  as  secretary,  were  imprisoned  for  six  months 
and  fined  ;^500  each.  The  Society  of  United  Irishmen, 
thus  persecuted,  took  refuge  in  secrecy  and  became  a 
conspiracy.  It  was  still,  however,  watched  and  fo- 
mented by  government.  The  first  really  treasonable 
project  was  proposed  to  it  in  April,  1794,  by  the  Rev. 
Wm.  Jackson,  a  Protestant  clergyman  and  an  agent 
from  the  French  Convention,  and  he  was  accompanied 
by  a  London  lawyer  named  John  Cockayne,  an  agent  of 
Wm.  Pitt,  the  Premier  of  England.  Thus  did  the 
Society  of  United  Irishmen  become  a  secret  and  treason- 
able conspiracy.  Their  first  organization  was  perfectly 
open,  legitimate,  and  loyal,  but  their  object  was  union 
amongst  Irishmen,  and  this  did  not  answer  the  purposes 
of  the  English  Government,  so  they  must  be  got  rid  of. 
The  only  way  to  do  this  was  to  goad  them  into  con- 
spiracy by  persecution,  and  from  conspiracy  to  rebel- 
lion, which  could  be  suppressed,  and  so  lay  the  country 
once  more  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  the  minister.  The 
test  of  the  United  Irishmen  reveals  nothing  treasonable. 
It  was  as  follows  :  *'  I,  A.  B.,  in  the  presence  of  God, 
do  pledge  myself  to  my  country,  that  I  will  use  all  my 
abilities  and  influence  in  the  attainment  of  an  impartial 
and  adequate  representation  of  the  Irish  nation  in  par- 
liament ;  and  as  a  means  of  absolute  and  immediate 
necessity  in  the  establishment  of  this  chief  good  of  Ire- 
land, I  will  endeavor,  as  much  as  lies  in  my  ability,  to 
forward  a  brotherhood  of  affection  and  identity  of  inter- 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  205 

ests,  a  communion  of  rights,  and  an  union  of  power 
among  Irishmen  of  all  religious  persuasions,  without 
which  every  reform  in  parliament  must  be  partial,  not 
national,  inadequate  to  the  wants,  delusive  to  the 
wishes,  and  insufficient  for  the  freedom  and  happiness 
of  this  country."  That  Wolfe  Tone  was  imbued  with 
republican  and  revolutionary  ideas  I  do  not  deny,  but 
he  never  attempted  to  impress  these  on  the  society, 
nor  did  they  ever  find  way  into  its  councils,  until  the 
English  Government  forced  it  to  become  a  conspiracy. 
The  third  object  of  the  Premier  and  the  government, 
namely,  to  create  an  Irish  rebellion,  was  accomplished 
by  the  cruelty  and  abominations  of  the  soldiery  quar- 
tered on  the  people — cruelties  which  made  death  itself 
preferable  to  life,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  last  lecture. 
So  much  for  Mr.  Froude's  assertions  that  "  The  Irish 
left  the  paths  of  practical  reform,  and  clamored  for  po- 
litical agitation.  From  agitation  grew  conspiracy,  and 
from  conspiracy  rebellion." 

It  may  be  asked  what  motive  could  the  English  Pre- 
mier have  in  adopting  so  tortuous  a  policy.  I  answer, 
he  had  resolved  on  the  legislative  Union  of  England 
and  Ireland  by  the  destruction  of  the  Irish  Parliament, 
and  he  knew  that  it  was  through  the  humiliation  and 
misfortune,  not  through  the  happiness  and  prosperity 
of  Ireland,  that  such  a  measure  could  be  brought  about. 
**  To  realize  his  favorite  project,"  says  an  Irish  histo- 
rian, **  the  unhappy  country  was  to  be  deluged  with 
crime  and  blood."  And  yet  how  easy  it  was  to  gov- 
ern Ireland,  and  to  conciliate  the  affections  of  her  peo- 


2o6  Lecture  V. 

pie,  Pitt  himself  had  a  striking  proof  of  at  this  very- 
time.  In  1795,  the  Piemier  seemed  to  abandon  for  a 
time  his  theory  of  governing  Ireland  by  coercion  and 
terror.  The  Earl  of  Westmoreland  was  recalled  from 
Ireland  and  Earl  Fitzwilliam  arrived  to  replace  him,  on 
the  4th  of  January,  1795. 

Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  a  man  of  liberal  principles  and 
most  estimable  disposition.  He  came  to  Ireland  on 
the  express  understanding  that  he  was  to  be  at 
liberty  to  pursue  a  policy  of  conciliation  and  kindness. 
He  found  at  Dublin  Castle,  Secretary  Cook  and  the 
Beresfords,  who  had  monopolized  for  years  all  the 
public  offices  and  emoluments,  and  had  uncontrolled 
sway  over  the  Irish  Government.  He  dismissed  them 
all  and  surrounded  himself  with  liberal-minded 
men.  The  Catholics  were  promised  emancipation,  the 
people,  were  inspired  with  a  confidence  which  they 
never  felt  before,  universal  joy  spread  through  the 
nation,  and  every  idea  of  disaffection  or  rebellion 
seemed  at  once  to  vanish  from  the  public  mind.  In 
an  evil  hour  Pitt  resumed  his  old  ideas,  and  on  the 
25th  of  March,  after  a  term  of  little  more  than  two 
months.  Earl  Fitzwilliam  was  recalled.  The  effect 
was  heartrending.  Addresses  and  resolutions  poured 
in  from  all  sides  to  avert  the  calamity,  but  to  no  pur- 
pose. Fitzwilliam  left  amidst  the  anguish  of  the 
people,  who  were  exasperated  at  Pitt's  duplicity.  The 
earFs  coach  was  drawn  to  the  waterside  by  some  of 
the  leading  citizens  of  Dublin,  and  the  city,  as  well  as 
the  nation,  wore  an  aspect   of  mourning.     The    fact 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  207 

was,  Pitt  had  made  up  his  mind  to  carry  the  union. 
The  rebellion  broke  out  and  was  defeated,  and  truly, 
as  Mr.  Froude  remarks,  *^  the  victors  took  away  old 
privileges  and  made  the  yoke  heavier."  The  **  old 
privilege  *'  in  question  was  the  Irish  Parliament. 
I  believe  that  America,  to  which  Mr.  Froude  makes 
appeal,  looks  upon  home  legislation  as  the  rights 
not  the  privilege,  of  a  people.  Looking  back  to 
strengthen  his  argument,  the  learned  gentleman  stated 
that  the  penal  laws  of  Elizabeth  were  the  effect  and 
result  of  the  revolutionary  war  of  1600,  by  which  I  pre- 
sume he  means  the  war  of  Hugh  O'Neill,  in  Ulster. 
Now,  history  records  that  the  penal  laws  began  to 
operate  in  Ireland  as  early  as  1534,  under  Henry  VIII. 
In  1537,  Cromer,  the  Primate,  was  cast  into  prison  for 
denying  the  royal  supremacy.  Passing  over  the  suc- 
ceeding penalties  enacted  by  Henry  and  by  Edward 
VI.,  we  come  to  the  parliament  convoked  by  Elizabeth 
in  1560.  In  that  famous  assembly,  ''AH  officers  and 
ministers,  ecclesiastic  or  lay,  were  bound  to  take  the 
oath  of  supremacy  under  pain  of  forfeiture  and  total 
incapacity ;  and  any  one  who  maintained  the  spiritual 
supremacy  of  the  Pope  was  to  forfeit,  for  the  first  of- 
fence, all  his  estates,  real  and  personal,  or  to  be  im- 
prisoned for  one  year,  if  not  worth  ;£"20 ;  for  the  sec- 
ond offence  to  be  liable  to  praemunire,  and  for  the  third 
to  be  guilty  of  high  treason."  These  laws  were  made, 
and  commissioners  were  appointed  to  enforce  them, 
full  forty  years  before  the  revolution  to  which  Mr. 
Froude  alludes  as  the  revolution  of  1600.     How  then 


2o8  Lecture  V. 

can  that  gentleman  ask  us  to  regard  the  penal  laws  as 
the  effects  of  that  revolution  ?  Moreover,  does  he  not 
himself  tell  us  that  Elizabeth  was  forced  into  the 
enactment  of  penal  laws  by  the  political  necessities 
of  her  situation  ?  He  excuses  her  cruelties  by  plead-*' 
ing  that  she  could  not  help  herself.  If  Ireland 
was  permitted  to  remain  Catholic,  Ireland  would  be 
hostile  to  her,  and  the  natural  and  necessary  ally  of  her 
enemies,  therefore  Ireland's  Catholicity  was  to  be  de- 
stroyed in  order  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  her  em- 
pire. The  only  way  to  effect  this  was  by  penal  laws 
making  it  felony  to  be  a  Catholic  in  Ireland ;  and  so 
Elizabeth,  on  the  principle  of  self-preservation,  was 
constrained  to  make  these  laws.  This  is  Mr.  Froude's 
own  argument,  put  forth  in  his  second  lecture  ;  yet,  in 
his  fifth  and  last  lecture  he  turns  round  and  tells  us 
that  these  penal  laws  were  the  consequence  of  a  revo- 
lution which  took  place  nearly  forty  years  after  they 
were  enacted.  I  would  advise  the  learned  gentleman, 
seeing  the  manner  in  which  he  treats  history,  to  sacrifice 
to  Mercury  for  the  gift  of  a  better  memory. 

**  The  laws  against  Catholics  were  almost  repealed 
before  1798.'*  This  is  the  next  assertion  of  Mr. 
Froude.  Now,  I  beg  my  reader  to  consider  what 
these  large  measures  of  indulgence  were.  In  1771, 
parliament  passed  an  act  to  enable  a  Catholic  to  take 
a  long  lease  of  fifty  acres  of  bog,  to  which,  if  the  bog 
were  too  deep  for  a  foundation,  half  an  acre  of  arable 
land  might  be  added  for  a  house ;  but  this  holding 
should  not  be  within  a  mile  of  any  city  or  town  ;   and 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  209 

if  half  the  bog  were  not  reclaimed  within  twenty-one 
years,  the  lease  was  forfeited.  Beggarly  as  this  con- 
cession was,  it  was  found  necessary  in  order  to  con- 
ciliate the  furious  Protestant  faction,  to  counterbalance 
it  by  an  act  adding  ;^io  a  year  to  the  pension  of  £10 
offered  to  any  "  Popish  priest  duly  converted  to  the 
Protestant  religion.'*  In  October,  1777,  the  news 
reached  England  that  Gen.  Burgoyne  had  surrendered 
to  the  American  Gen.  Gates,  and  Lord  North  imme- 
diately expressed  an  ardent  desire  to  relax  the  penal 
laws.  In  January,  1778,  the  independence  of  the 
United  States  was  acknowledged  by  France,  and  im- 
mediately the  English  Parliament  passed  a  bill  for  the 
relief  of  the  Roman  Catholics.  In  the  May  of  the 
same  year,  the  Irish  Parliament  passed  a  bill  enabling 
the  Catholics  to  lease  land  for  999  years,  repealing  the 
unnatural  law  which  altered  the  succession  in  favor  of 
a  child  embracing  Protestantism,  and  also  the  law  for 
the  prosecution  of  priests  and  for  the  imprisonment  of 
Catholic  schoolmasters.  This,  together  with  the  act 
of  1793,  restoring  the  franchise  to  Catholics,  and  en- 
abling them  to  hold  certain  commissions  in  the  army, 
was  positively  all  that  was  granted,  and  this  Mr. 
Froude  has  the  hardihood  to  call  an  almost  total 
repeal  of  the  acts  against  Catholics. 

''The  insurrection  of  '98,''  continues  the  learned 
gentleman,  ''  threw  Ireland  back  into  a  condition  of 
confusion  and  misery  from  which  she  was  partially 
delivered  by  the  act  of  union."  The  first  part  of  this 
proposition  I  admit,  the  second  I  emphatically  deny. 


2vio  Lecture  V, 

I  freely  admit  that  Ireland  was  flung  into  a  state  of 
confusion  and  misery  by  the  movement  of  '98.  An 
unsuccessful  rebellion  is  one  of  the  greatest  calamities 
that  can  befall  a  people,  and  the  sooner  Irish  patriots 
understand  this  the  better  will  it  be  for  them  and  for 
their  country.  But  I  must  deny  that  the  act  of  union 
was  even  a  partial  deliverance  from  that  misery,  or  a 
benefit  or  blessing  of  any  kind  for  Ireland.  It  was  a 
curse,  and  nothing  more  nor  less  ;  an  evil  which  must 
be  remedied  if  the  wrongs  and  miseries  of  Ireland  are 
ever  to  be  redressed.  I  need  not  dwell  on  the  whole- 
sale corruption  and  other  execrable  means  by  which 
the  political  apostate  Castlereagh  carried  the  vile 
measure.  Mr.  Froude  has  the  good  sense  not  to 
meddle  with  the  dirty  subject,  and  I  can  do  no  better 
than  to  imitate  him  in  this.  *'  It  was  expected,**  he 
says,  *^that  whatsoever  grievances  Ireland  complained 
of  would  be  removed  by  legislation."  Quite  true.  The 
nation  was  bribed  by  promises  of  justice,  as  the  politi- 
cians were  bribed  by  money  and  titles.  Amongst  other 
things.  Catholic  Emancipation  was  promised  as  a  bribe 
for  the  surrender  of  the  native  parliament.  But  when 
the  wicked  act  was  consummated,  the  Irish  were  left  to 

"  Mourn  the  hopes  that  left  them," 

and  to  meditate  in  bitterness  of  spirit  on  the  nature 
of  English  faith.  ''  But,"  adds  Mr.  Froude,  ''  they  had 
no  foundation  for  their  complaints.  They  were  not 
treated  unjustly."  Good  God.  What  is  this  gentle- 
man's idea  of  justice?  What  did  Ireland  gain,  what 
did  she  lose,  by  the  act  of  union  ?     Her  gain  is  noth- 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  2 1 1 

ing — absolutely  nothing.  Let  us  examine  her  loss. 
The  national  debt  of  Ireland  was  distinct  from  that 
of  England  up  to  the  year  1817.  In  1797,  just  before 
the  insurrection,  the  national  debt  of  Ireland  was  less 
than  four  millions  sterling.  Three  years  later  that  debt 
was  found  to  be  ^^26,841, 2 19.  If  you  ask  me  the  rea- 
son of  the  enormous  increase,  I  answer :  first,  England 
had  for  her  own  purposes  in  Ireland  at  the  time  of  the 
union  126,500  men.  She  made  Ireland  pay  for  every  man 
of  them.  In  order  to  carry  the  union,  England  spent 
enormous  sums  in  bribes  to  spies,  informers,  and  Mem- 
bers of  Parliament.  She  took  every  penny  of  this 
money  out  of  the  Irish  treasury.  There  were  eighty- 
four  rotten  boroughs  disfranchised,  and  to  compensate 
those  who  lost  the  nomination  to  these  boroughs,  that 
is  to  say,  who  lost  the  bribery  money  and  corrupt  in- 
fluence which  the  representation  of  these  boroughs 
brought  them,  Castlereagh  gave  a  sum  of  ;^i, 200,000. 
Ireland  was  made  to  pay  this  money  by  which  Eng- 
land purchased  the  union.  ^'  It  was  strange,"  says 
O'Connell,  "•  that  Ireland  was  not  made  to  pay  for  the 
knife  with  which,  twenty-two  years  later,  Castlereagh 
cut  his  throat."  But  if  Ireland's  debt  was  run  up  from 
less  than  four  millions  to  nearly  twenty-seven  millions 
in  so  short  a  time,  mark  what  follows.  In  January, 
1 801,  the  debt  of  Great  Britain  was  ;^4So,  504,984,  the 
annual  charge  for  which  was  ;^i7,7i8,85i.  In  1817, 
the  same  debt  was  ;^734,522,i04,  the  annual  charge 
being  ^28,238,416.  Thus  we  see  that  the  debt  of  Eng- 
land was  not  quite  doubled  during  these  years  of  most 


212  Lecture  V, 

expensive  war.  Now,  come  to  Ireland  for  the  same 
time.  In  1801,  the  Irish  debt  was  ;^28,545,I34,  at  an 
annual  charge  of  ^1,244,463.  In  1817,  the  same  Irish 
debt  was  ;^i  12,704,773,  at  an  annual  charge  of 
;^4,i04,5i4.  Now  reflect  upon  these  figures.  Irelancf' 
was  so  lightly  burthened  with  debt  at  the  time  of  the 
union,  as  compared  with  England,  that  the  English 
did  not  presume  to  ask  us  to  bear  an  equal  taxation 
with  themselves.  They  were  rich  and  could  bear  it. 
We  were  poor  and  could  not.  Before  the  union  Eng- 
land had  an  enormous  debt  of  ;^45 0,000,000.  Ireland, 
a  comparatively  trifling  debt  of  ^26,000,000.  Ireland 
was  consequently  much  more  lightly  taxed  than  Eng- 
land, as  it  is  much  easier  to  pay  interest  on  £26  than 
on  ^450.  It  was,  however,  agreed  that  in  case  the 
debt  of  Ireland  ever  arrived  at  one-seventh  of  that  of 
England,  then  Ireland  should  be  subject  to  indiscrimin- 
ate taxation  with  Great  Britain.  An  English  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  took  charge  of  Ireland's  accounts, 
for  the  keeping  our  own  books  was  lost  to  us  by  the 
union  :  **  The  debt  of  England  went  on  increasing 
rapidly,'*  says  Mr.  Mitchel,  **  owing  to  the  war  and  sub- 
sidies to  all  enemies  of  France,  the  debt  of  Ireland  was 
somehow  found  to  increase  more  than  twice  as  fast  as 
that  of  England — as  if  Ireland  had  a  double  interest 
in  crushing  France."  In  a  word,  while  the  Imperial 
Parliament  at  Westminster  less  than  doubled  the  debt 
of  England,  they  managed  to  increase  Ireland's  debt 
four-fold  in  sixteen  years,  and  so  made  the  Irish  peo- 
ple liable  to  be  taxed  for  the  enormous  debt  which 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  2 1 3 

England  had  contracted  even  before  the  union.  And 
yet  Mr.  Froude  audaciously  says,  ^'  the  people  were  not 
treated  unjustly.*'  Mr.  Froude  lays  stress  on  the  benefit 
which  the  union  conferred  on  Ireland  by  giving  her 
the  same  commercial  privileges  enjoyed  by  England. 
^^  True,  the  laws  regulating  trade  are  the  same  in  the 
two  islands,"  says  Mr.  Mitchel.  *^  Ireland  may  export 
even  woollen  cloth  to  England ;  she  may  import,  in 
her  own  ships,  tea  from  China,  and  sugar  from  Barba- 
does ;  the  laws  which  made  those  acts  penal  offences 
no  longer  exist ;  they  are  no  longer  needed  ;  England 
is  fully  in  possession  ;  and  by  the  operation  of  those 
old  laws,  Ireland  was  utterly  ruined.  England  has  the 
commercial  marine  ;  Ireland  has  it  to  create.  Eng- 
land has  the  manufacturing  skill  and  machinery,  of 
which  Ireland  was  deprived  by  express  laws  for  that 
purpose.  England  has  the  current  of  trade  established, 
setting  strongly  in  her  own  channel ;  while  Ireland  is 
left  dry."  '^  To  create,  or  recover  at  this  day,  these 
great  industrial  and  commercial  resources,  and  that  in 
the  face  of  wealthy  rivals  already  in  full  possession,  is 
manifestly  impossible,  without  one  or  other  of  these 
two  conditions,  either  immense  command  of  capital, 
or  effectual  protective  duties.  But  by  the  union  our 
capital  is  drained  away  to  England  ;  and  by  the  union 
we  are  deprived  of  the  power  of  imposing  protective 
duties.  It  was  to  this  very  end  that  the  union  was 
forced  upon  Ireland,  through  ^  intolerance  of  Irish 
prosperity.'"'  *^Do  not  unite  with  us,  sir,"  said  Dr. 
Johnson;  ^' we  shall  rob  you''     In  the  first  year  after 


214  Lecture  V, 

the  union,  in  1801,  Mr.  Foster  stated  in  parliament  a 
falling  off  \xi  exported  linens  of  five  million  yards. 
The  same  gentleman,  three  years  later,  stated  that,  in 
1800,  the  net  produce  of  the  Irish  revenue  was 
;^2, 800,000,  whilst  the  debt  was  only  ;£'2 5, 000,000  ;*• 
whereas,  three  years  later,  the  debt  was  ;^5 3,000,000, 
more  than  doubled,  whilst  the  revenue  was  ;£"2, 789,000, 
a  falling  off  of  ;£"!  1,000  \w  the. income,  to  meet  a  debt 
more  than  doubled. 

Absenteeism  was  vastly  increased  by  the  union. 
Dublin  was  no  longer  a  metropolis.  Fashion,  wealth, 
political  interest,  intellectual  activity,  all  were  trans- 
ferred to  London.  At  this  day,  the  Duke  of  Leinster's 
palace  is  changed  into  a  museum  ;  Powerscourt  House 
is  a  warehouse  for  drapers ;  Tyrone  House  is  a  school- 
house  ;  Bective  House  has  given  place  to  a  Presbyterian 
meeting-house ;  Charlemont  House  is  the  head  office 
of  the  Board  of  Works  ;  Aldborough  House  a  barrack  : 
Belvidere  House  a  convent.  This,  and  far  worse  than 
this,  was  the  state  to  which  the  union  brought  Ireland. 
The  crumbling  liberties  of  Dublin  attest  the  ruin  of  her 
trade  ;  the  forsaken  harbors  of  Limerick  and  Galway  tell 
the  destruction  of  her  commerce;  the  palaces  in  Dublin 
abandoned  to  decay,  announce  that  she  has  no  longer 
a  resident  nobility  ;  and  the  forlorn  custom-houses  tell 
that  her  income  is  transferred  elsewhere.  The  Catho- 
lics were  told  that  their  emancipation  would  be  one 
of  the  results  of  the  union,  and,  upon  this  understand- 
ing, plainly  enough  given  by  my  Lord  Cornwallis, 
some  of  the  bishops  gave  a  tacit  and  neutral  kind  of 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  215 

consent  to  the  measure.  The  word  of  the  govern- 
ment was  pledged.  Pitt's  honor  was  at  stake.  He 
had  pledged  himself  through  his  Lord  Lieutenant 
Cornwallis  **  not  to  embark  in  the  service  of  govern- 
ment, except  on  the  terms  of  the  Catholic  privileges 
being  obtained."  Pitt  retired  on  pretence  that  the 
king's  obstinacy  prevented  him  from  keeping  his  word. 
But  it  is  well  known  that  the  reason  why  Pitt  re- 
tired was,  that  his  continental  policy  had  failed  ;  that 
the  people  of  England  were  tired  of  his  wars,  and  that 
they  were  clamoring  for  peace.  He  was  too  proud  a 
man  to  sign  even  a  temporary  peace  with  France,  and 
so  he  retired  in  sullen  pride  and  disgust,  and  he  put 
his  retirement  on  the  easy  pretence  that  he  could 
not  be  allowed  to  carry  out  Catholic  emancipation. 
Some  time  after  the  Addington  administration  was 
broken  up,  Mr.  Pitt  returned  again  to  the  Pre- 
miership of  England  ;  and  the  second  time  not  one 
word  escaped  his  lips  about  Catholic  Emancipation,  a 
thing  he  resisted  to  the  day  of  his  death.  He  was  as 
great  an  enemy  of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  as  ever 
poor  old,  foolish,  mad  George  HL  was,  and  it  was 
only  after  twenty-nine  years  of  marked  effort  that  the 
great  O'Connell  rallied  the  Irish  nation  ;  that  he  succeed- 
ed after  a  time  in  uniting  all  the  Catholics  of  Ireland 
as  one  man,  and  a  great  number  of  her  noble-hearted 
Protestant  fellow-Irishmen.  When  O'Connell  came 
knocking  at  the  doors  of  the  British  Parliament  with  the 
hands  of  the  united  Irish  people  ;  when  he  spoke  with 
the  voice  of  eight  millions,  only  then,  even  as  the  walls 


2i6  LecUire    V. 

of  Jericho  crumbled  to  the  sound  of  Joshua^s  trumpet, 
did  the  old,  bigoted  British  House  of  Commons  trem- 
ble, and  did  the  doors  open  to  the  gigantic  Irishman 
that  represented  them. 

The  English  historian  cannot  say  that  England** 
granted  Catholic  Emancipation  willingly.  She  granted 
it  as  a  man  would  yield  up  a  bad  tooth  to  a  dentist. 
O'Connell  put  the  forceps  into  that  false  old  mouth. 
The  old  tyrant  wriggled  and  groaned.  The  bigoted 
profligate  who  then  disgraced  the  English  crown  shed 
his  crocodile  tears  upon  the  bill ;  the  eyes  which  were 
never  known  to  weep  over  the  ruin  of  female  virtue  ; 
the  face  that  was  never  known  to  change  color  in  the 
presence  of  any  foul  deed  or  accusation  of  vice — that 
face  grew  pale,  and  George  IV.  wept  for  sorrow  when 
he  had  to  sign  the  Catholic  Emancipation  Bill.  The 
man  who  had  conquered  Napoleon  upon  the  field  of 
Waterloo — the  man  who  was  declared  to  be  the  in- 
vincible victor  of  the  greatest  of  warriors — stood  there 
with  that  bill  in  his  hand,  and  he  said  to  the  King  of 
England,  ^'  I  would  not  grant,  your  Majesty,  any  more 
than  you  ;  but  it  is  forced  upon  you  and  me.  You 
must  sign  that  paper  or  prepare  for  civil  war  and  re- 
bellion in  Ireland." 

I  regret  to  be  obliged  to  say  it,  my  friends,  but  real- 
ly, the  history  of  my  native  land  proves  to  me  that 
England  never  granted  anything  to  Ireland  from  a 
sense  of  justice,  or  from  any  other  motive  than  the 
craven  fear  of  civil  war  or  some  serious  inconvenience 
to  herself. 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  217 

Now,  having  arrived  at  this  point,  Mr.  Froude  glan- 
ces, I  must  say,  in  a  magnificent,  manly  manner  over 
the  great  questions  that  have  affected  Ireland  since 
the  day  that  emancipation  was  passed.  He  speaks 
words  of  the  most  eloquent  compassion  over  the  ter- 
rible visitation  of  1846  and  1847 — words,  the  reading 
of  which  brought  tears  to  my  eyes — and  for  those 
words  of  compassion  he  gave  to  the  people  whose 
sufferings  I  witnessed,  I  pray  to  God  to  bless  him  and 
reward  him.  He  speaks  words  of  generous  and  en- 
lightened statesmanship  and  sympathy  with  the  tenant 
farmers  and  peasants  of  Ireland,  and  for  those  words, 
Mr.  Froude,  if  you  were  an  Englishman  ten  thousand 
times  over,  I  love  you. 

He  does  not  attempt  to  speak  of  the  future  of  Ire- 
land. Perhaps  it  is  a  dangerous  thing  for  me.  Yet,  I 
suppose  all  that  we  have  been  discussing  in  the  past 
must  have  some  reference  to  the  future,  for  surely  the 
verdict  that  Mr.  Froude  looks  for  is  not  the  mere  ver- 
dict of  absolution  for  past  iniquities.  He  has  come 
here,  though  not  a  Catholic,  like  a  man  going  to  con- 
fession. He  has  cried  out  loudly  and  generously, 
*'  We  have  sinned  !  we  have  sinned  !  we  have  griev- 
ously sinned  !'*  The  verdict  which  he  calls  for  must 
surely  regard  the  future  more  than  the  past,  for  how, 
in  the  name  of  common  sense,  how,  in  the  name  of 
justice  and  history,  can  any  man  ask  for  a  verdict 
justifying  the  roll  of  iniquities,  the  heart-rending 
record  of  cruelty,  injustice,  bloodshed,  and  ruin,  which 
we  have   been  contemplating  in   common  with    Mr. 


2l8  Lecture  V, 

Froude.  It  must  be  for  the  future.  What  is  that 
future  to  be? 

Well,  my  friends,  and  first  of  all,  my  American  grand 
jury,  you  must  remember  that  I  am  only  a  monk,  I 
am  not  a  man  of  the  world,  and  I  do  not  understand 
much  about  these  things.  There  are  wiser  men  than 
myself,  and  I  will  give  you  their  opinions. 

There  is  one  class  of  men  who  love  Ireland  (and  I  am 
only  speaking  the  opinion  of  men  who  love  Ireland,  and 
who  love  her  sincerely),  there  is  one  class  of  men  who  in 
their  love  for  Ireland  think  that  the  future  of  their  coun- 
try is  to  be  wrought  out  by  insurrection,  by  rising  in  arms 
against  the  power  which  holds  Ireland  enslaved,  if  you 
will.  Well,  if  the  history  which  Mr.  Froude  has  just  been 
telling,  and  which  I  have  just  endeavored  to  review, 
teaches  anything,  it  teaches  us  that  there  is  no  use  to 
appeal  to  the  sword  or  to  armed  insurrection  for  Ire- 
land. Mr.  Froude  says  that  that  will  only  succeed 
when  the  Irish  people  have  two  things  that  they  do 
not  seem  to  have  now,  namely,  union  as  one  man,  and 
a  determination  not  to  sheathe  that  sword  until  the 
work  is  done.  I  know  that  I  would  win  louder  plaud- 
its from  the  citizens  of  America,  and  speak  more 
popular  language  \n  the  ears  of  my  fellow-countrymen 
if  I  declared  my  adhesion  to  that  class  of  Irishmen. 
But  there  is  not  a  living  man  who  loves  Ireland  any  more 
dearly  than  I  do.  There  are  those  who  love  her  more 
effectively  and  serve  her  with  greater  distinction.  But 
there  is  no  living  man  who  loves  Ireland  more  tender- 
ly than  I.     I  prize  the  good-will  of   my  fellow-Irish- 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  219 

men,  and  prize  it  next  to  the  grace  of  God.  I  always 
prized  the  popularity  which,  however  unworthily,  I 
possessed  with  them.  But  I  tell  you,  American  citi- 
zens, that  for  all  that  popularity,  and  for  all  that  good- 
will, I  would  not  compromise  one  iota  of  my  convic- 
tions, nor  would  I  state  what  I  do  not  believe  to  be 
true.  I  do  not  believe  in  insurrectionary  movements 
in  so  divided  a  country  as  Ireland. 

There  is  another  class  of  Irishmen  who  hold  that 
Ireland  has  a  future  and  a  glorious  future,  that  that 
future  is  to  be  wrought  out  in  this  way :  they  say,  and 
I  think  with  justice  and  right,  that  wealth  acquired  by 
industry  brings  with  it  power  and  political  influence. 
They  say,  therefore,  to  the  Irish  at  home,  "Try  to 
accumulate  wealth ;  lay  hold  of  the  industries  and 
develope  the  resources  of  your  country;  try,  in  the 
meantime,  to  labor  and  effect  that  blessed  union,  with- 
out which,  there  can  never  be  a  future  for  Ireland. 
That  union  can  only  be  effected  by  largeness  of  mind, 
by  generosity,  by  urbanity  among  fellow-citizens,  and 
by  rising  above  the  miserable  bigotry  that  carries 
religious  differences  and  religious  hatred  into  the  rela- 
tions of  life  that  do  not  belong  to  religion."  They  say 
to  the  men  of  Ireland,  '*  Try  to  acquire  property  and 
wealth  ;  this  can  only  be  done  by  peaceful,  arduous 
industry,  and  that  industry  can  only  be  exercised  as 
long  as  the  country  is  at  peace,  as  long  as  there  is  a 
truce  to  violent  political  agitation."  Then  these  men 
say — I  am  giving  the  opinions  of  others,  not  my  own 
— to  the  Irish  in  America.    *'  Men  of  Ireland  in  Amer- 


220  Lecture  V, 

ica — men  of  Irish  birth — men  of  American  birth,  but 
Irish  blood — we  believe  that  God  has  largely  entrusted 
the  destinies  of  Ireland  to  you.  America  demands  of 
her  citizens  only  energy,  industry,  temperance,  truth, 
and  obedience  to  law,  and  any  man  that  has  these,  *• 
with  the  brains  that  God  gives  to  every  Irishman,  is 
sure  in  this  country  to  realize  fortune  and  grand  posi- 
tion. If  you  are  faithful  to  America  in  these  respects, 
America  will  be  faithful  to  you.  In  proportion  as  the 
great  Irish  element  in  America  rise  in  wealth,  it  will 
rise  in  political  influence  and  power — a  political  influ- 
ence and  power  which,  in  a  few  years,  is  destined  to 
overshadow  the  whole  world,  and  bring  about,  through 
peace  and  justice,  far  greater  revolution  in  the  cause 
of  honor  and  in  the  cause  of  manhood,  than  ever  have 
been  effected  by  the  sword." 

This  is  the  programme  of  the  second  class  of  Irish- 
men ;  and  now,  I  tell  you  candidly,  that  to  this  pro- 
gramme I  give  my  hearths  and  soul's  consent. 

You  will  ask  me  about  separation  from  the  crown  of 
England.  Well,  that  is  a  ticklish  question  just  now. 
I  dare  say  you  remember  that  when  Charles  Edward 
was  Pretender  to  the  crown  of  England,  during  the 
first  years  of  the  House  of  Hanover,  there  was  a  toast 
which  the  Jacobite  gentlemen  used  to  give.  It  was 
this: 

"  God  bless  the  King ;  our  noble  faith's  defender  ; 
Long  may  he  live,  and  down  with  the  Pretender. 
But  who  be  the  Pretender,  who  be  King, 
God  bless  us  all,  that's  quite  another  thing." 

And  yet,  with  the  courage  of  an  old  monk,  I  will 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  221 

give  you  my  mind  on  this  very  question.  History 
tells  us  that  empires,  like  men,  run  the  cycle  of  the 
years  of  their  life,  and  then  die.  No  matter  how  ex- 
tended their  power ;  no  matter  how  mighty  their  influ- 
ence ;  no  matter  how  great  their  wealth,  or  invincible 
their  arms,  the  day  comes — the  inevitable  day — that 
brings  with  it  decay  and  disruption.  Thus  it  was  with 
the  empire  of  the  Medes  and  Persians.  Thus  it  was 
with  the  mighty  empire  of  the  Assyrians.  Thus  it  was 
with  the  Egyptians  of  old.  Thus  it  was  with  Greece, 
and  thus  with  Rome.  Who  would  have  imagined,  for 
instance,  fifteen  hundred  years  ago,  before  the  Goths 
first  came  to  the  walls  of  Rome,  that  the  greatest 
power  that  was  to  sway  the  whole  Roman  Empire, 
v/ould  be  the  little  unknown  island  floating  out  in  the 
Western  Ocean,  know^n  only  by  having  been  conquered 
by  the  legions  of  Rome,  and  known  as  the  ultima  thule 
— the  tin  island  m  the  far-distant  ocean !  Yet,  in  the 
course  of  time,  this  did  come  to  pass. 

Now,  my  friends,  England  has  been  a  long  time  at 
the  top  of  the  wheel.  Do  you  imagine  she  will  always 
remain  there  ?  I  do  not  want  to  be  more  loyal  than 
Mr.  Macaulay,  and  Mr.  Macaulay  describes  a  day 
which  he  foresees,  when  the  traveller  from  New  Zea- 
land will  take  his  stand  on  the  broken  arch  of  London 
Bridge  and  sketch  the  ruins  of  St.  Paul's.  Is  that 
wheel  of  England  rising  or  is  it  falling?  Is  England  to- 
day what  she  was  twenty  years  ago  ?  England,  twen- 
ty years  ago,  in  her  first  alliance  with  Napoleon  III., 
had  a  finger   in   every   pie   in    Europe.      Lord   John 


222  Lecture  V. 

Russell  and  Lord  Palmerston  were  both  busy-bodies 
of  the  first  water.  England  to-day  has  no  more  to 
say  in  the  affairs  of  Europe  than  the  Emperor  of 
China.  You  see  it  in  the  fact — I  am  only  talking 
philosophy — that  a  few  months  ago  the  three  great  %. 
Emperors  of  Germany,  Austria,  and  Russia  came 
together  in  Berlin  to  fix  the  map  of  Europe.  They 
didn't  even  pass  England  the  courtesy  to  come  in 
and  to  see  what  she  had  to  say  about  it.  The 
army  of  England  is,  to-day,  nothing ;  it  is  a  mere 
cipher.  The  German  emperor  can  bring  1,200,000 
soldiers  into  the  field.  England,  for  the  life  of  her, 
could  not  put  200,000  men  against  him.  An  English 
citizen — a  loyal  Englishman — wrote  a  book  called 
"  The  Battle  of  Dorking,"  in  which  he  describes  the 
landing  of  a  German  army  in  England,  and  a  battle 
fought  at  Dorking,  and  England  without  the  means 
of  preventing  the  march  of  the  victorious  army  upon 
London.  Why  should  I  be  more  loyal  to  the  English 
government?  Mr.  Reed,  the  first  authority  in  Eng- 
land, and  the  chief  constructor  of  the  Navy,  wrote 
an  article  the  other  day,  which  was  published  in  a 
London  paper,  in  which  he  declares  that,  at  this 
moment,  the  British  fleet  would  be  afraid  to  go  into 
Russian  waters.  Why  should  I  be  more  loyal  than 
Mr.  Reed?  An  empire  begins  to  totter  and  decay 
when  it  withdraws  its  forces  from  the  outlying  provin- 
ces, as  the  decay  of  the  Roman  Empire  began  when 
the  Roman  legions  were  withdrawn  from  Britain. 
England   to-day  says  to  Canada  and   Australia,  **  Oh, 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  223 

take  your  government  into  your  own  hands.  I  do 
not  want  to  be  bothered  with  you  any  more."  Eng- 
land, that  eighty  years  ago  fought  the  United  Colo- 
nies of  America  as  long  as  she  could  put  a  man  in 
the  field,  has  changed  her  policy.  An  empire  is 
crumbling  to  decay  when  she  begins  to  buy  off  her 
enemies,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  Empire,  when 
she  began  to  buy  off  the  Scythians  and  Thracians, 
and  the  barbarians  that  came  upon  her  bef9re  she 
fell.  A  few  days  ago,  England  was  presented  with  a 
little  bill  by  America.  She  said,  '^  Jonathan,  I  owe 
you  nothing."  John  Bull  buttoned  up  his  pocket  and 
swore  he  would  not  pay  a  cent.  Then  America  said, 
**  Look  here,  John,  if  you  don't  like  this,"  and  he 
hauled  out  a  sword  and  put  it  in  one  hand,  and  said, 
'^take  whichever  you  like."  John  Bull  paid  the 
bill.  My  friends,  that  looks  very  much  as  if  the  day 
of  the  visit  of  Macaulay's  New  Zealander  was  rapidly 
approaching. 

In  that  day,  my  position  is  that  Ireland  will  be  the 
mistress  of  her  own  destinies,  with  the  liberty  that  will 
come  to  her,  not  from  men,  but  from  that  God  whom 
she  ever  loved.  The  whole  question  is,  will  Ireland  on 
that  day  be  worthy  of  the  glorious  destiny  that  is  m 
the  womb  of  time  and  the  hand  of  God  ?  I  say  that  Ire- 
land will  be  worthy  of  it,  if  that  day  dawn  upon  a  united 
people,  upon  a  faithful  people,  upon  a  people  that  will 
keep,  every  man,  his  faith  in  God,  his  holy  religion,  as  his 
fathers  before  him  kept  it  in  dark  hours  and  the  terrible 
day  of  persecution.  I  say  that  Ireland  will  be  worthy  of 


224  Lecture  V, 

the  destiny  if,  on  that  day,  when  it  dawns  upon  her,  she 
will  be  found  as  distinctive,  as  individual  a  people  and  a 
race  as  she  is  to-day,  in  her  affliction  and  in  her  misery. 
If  she  foster  her  traditions,  if  she  keep  up  her  high 
hopes,  if  she  keep  the  tender  and  strong  love  that  her  ♦^ 
people  have  always  had  for  the  Green  Isle  that  bore  them, 
then  will  Ireland  be  worthy  in  that  day  of  her  destiny. 
What  shall  that  destiny  be?  My  friends,  if  Mr. 
Froude  has  proved  anything,  I  think  he  has  proved 
this  general  proposition,  that  although  the  Almighty 
God  lavished  upon  the  English  people  many  gifts,  yet 
there  is  one  gift  He  never  gave  them,  that  of  know- 
ing how  to  govern  another  people.  To  govern  a  peo- 
ple requires,  first  of  all,  strict  justice ;  second,  to 
have  the  interest  of  the  people  at  heart — their  real 
interests  ;  and,  third,  it  requires  tact  and  urbanity. 
The  French  have  this,  the  English  have  not.  Look  at 
Alsace  and  Lorraine,  severed  now  from  the  French 
people,  their  inhabitants  heartbroken,  leaving  their 
native  land  rather  than  become  a  part  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire,  and  why  ?  because  France  governed  her 
with  justice,  and  always  consulted  her  true  interests 
by  French  urbanity  and  tact.  The  history  of  the 
English  connection  with  Ireland  is  a  history  of  injus- 
tice— a  history  of  heartlessness.  It  is,  above  all,  a  his- 
tory of  blundering  and  want  of  tact,  and  not  know- 
ing what  to  do  with  the  people — never  understanding 
them,  nor  knowing  anything  about  their  genius,  about 
their  prejudices,  or  about  the  shape  and  form  of  their 
national  character. 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  225 

But  there  is  another  nation  that  understands  Ire- 
land, and  has  proved  that  she  understands  her ;  whose 
statesmen  have  always  spoken  words  of  bright 
encouragement  and  tender  sympathy,  and  of  manly 
hope  to  Ireland,  in  her  darkest  days,  and  that  nation 
is  the  United  States  of  America.  That  mighty  land, 
placed  by  Omnipotent  hand  between  the  far  east  on 
the  one  side,  to  which  she  stretches  out  her  glorious 
arm  over  the  broad  Pacific,  while  on  the  other  hand 
she  sweeps  with  her  left  hand  over  the  Atlantic  and 
touches  Europe — the  mighty  land,  enclosing  in  her 
splendid  bosom  untold  resources  of  every  form  of 
commercial  and  other  wealth — the  mighty  land,  with 
room  for  three  hundred  millions  of  men ;  with  millions 
of  oppressed  ones  from  all  the  world,  ever  flying  to 
her  more  than  imperial  bosom,  there  to  find  liberty, 
and  the  sacred  right  of  civil  and  religious  freedom. 
Is  there  not  reason  to  suppose  that  in  that  future, 
which  we  cannot  see  to-day,  but  which  lies  before  us, 
that  America  will  be  to  the  whole  world  what 
Rome  was  in  the  ancient  days,  what  England  was 
a  few  years  ago — the  great  store-house  of  the  world, 
the  great  ruler — ^pacific  ruler  by  justice  of  the  whole 
world  ;  her  manufacturing  power  dispensing  from  out 
her  mighty  bosom  all  the  necessaries  and  all  the  luxu- 
ries of  life  to  the  whole  world  around  her  ?  She  may 
be  destined,  and  I  believe  she  is,  to  rise  rapidly  into 
that  gigantic  power  that  will  overshadow  all  other  na- 
tions. When  that  conclusion  does  come  to  pass,  what 
is  more  natural  than  that  Ireland — now,  I  will  sup- 


226  Lecture  V, 

pose,  mistress  of  her  destinies — should  turn  and  stretch 
all  the  arms  of  her  sympathy  and  love  across  the  in- 
tervening waves  of  the  Atlantic,  and  be  received,  an 
independent  State,  into  the  mighty  confederation  of 
America?  Mind — I  am  not  speaking  treason.  Re- 
member, I  said  distinctly  that  all  this  is  to  come  to 
pass  after  Macaulay's  New  Zealander  has  arrived. 
America  will  require  an  emporium  for  her  European 
trade.  Ireland  lies  there,  right  between  her  and  Eu- 
rope, with  its  splendid  coast  and  vast  harbors,  able  to 
shelter  her  commercial  and  other  fleets.  America 
may  require  a  great  European  store-house,  and  a  great 
European  hive  for  American  manufactures.  Ireland 
has  manufacturing  water-power  flowing  down  to  the 
sea,  which  in  future  may  be  busy  in  turning  wheels  set 
upon  those  streams  by  American  capital  and  Irish  in- 
dustry. If  ever  that  day  comes  ;  if  ever  that  Union 
comes,  it  will  be  no  degradation  to  Ireland  to  join 
hands  with  America,  because  America  does  not  enslave 
her  friends.  She  accepts  them  on  terms  of  glorious 
equality,  and  she  respects  the  rights  of  the  peoples 
who  cast  their  lots  with  hers. 

Now,  I  have  done  with  this  subject,  and  with  Mr. 
Froude.  I  have  but  one  word  to  say  before  I  retire. 
If,  during  the  course  of  these  five  lectures,  one  single 
word  personally  offensive  to  this  distinguished  gentle- 
man has  escaped  my  lips,  I  take  that  word  back  now. 
I  apologize  to  him  before  he  asks  me.  I  beg  to  assure 
him  that  such  a  word  never  came  wilfully  from  my 
mind  or  from  my  heart.     He  says  he  loves  Ireland.     I 


Ireland  since  the  Union,  227 

believe,  according  to  his  lights,  he  does  love  Ireland. 
Our  lights  are  very  different  from  his.  But  still.  Al- 
mighty God  will  judge  every  man  according  to  his 
lights. 

THE    VERDICT. 

After  the  applause  had  subsided,  the  Very  Rev. 
Father  Starrs,  Vicar-General,  came  forward  and 
said  : — 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  I  have  merely  a  few 
words  to  say  to  you  before  you  separate  this  evening. 
You  all  know  that  this  is  the  last  lecture  of  the  course 
by  the  Very  Rev.  Father  Burke  in  reply  to  the  lectures 
of  Mr.  Froude,  the  English  historian;  and  I  know 
very  well  that  you  must  all  feel  satisfied  with  the 
manner  in  which  he  has  replied  to  the  lectures  of  that 
distinguished  gentleman.  But  nevertheless,  I  take 
this  opportunity  to  move  a  vote  of  thanks  to  the 
Very  Rev.  Father  Burke  for  the  able,  dignified,  and 
learned  manner  in  which  he  has  accomplished  his 
purpose,  in  the  course  of  lectures  which  he  has  just 
concluded. 

Voices, — I  second  the  motion. 

Father  Starrs, — The  motion  has  been  seconded. 
Are  you  ready  for  the  question  ? 

Voices, — Question  !  Question ! 

Father  Starrs, — All  in  favor  of  this  motion  will 
please  say  '*  Aye." 

A  tremendous  *^  Ky^  "  resounded  vci  the  vast  audito- 
rium from  pit  to  dome. 


228 


Lecture  V, 


Father  Starrs, — All  opposed  will  say  **  No." 
No  response  was  heard. 
Father  Starrs, — It  is  carried  unanimously. 
[Tremendous  applause.] 


APPENDIX. 


(i)  Page  lo.  Mr.  Froude  in  his  ''  Reply  to  Father 
Burke  and  Others,"  denies  that  he  sought  such  a  verdict 
of  acquittal  or  approbation  of  England  and  her  policy, 
from  the  American  people.  He  states  that  he  only 
asks  the  approving  force  of  American  opinion,  to  back 
him  in  his  opposition  to  the  idea  of  a  repeal  of  the 
Union  or  '^  Home  Rule  "  as  it  is  called  to-day.  His 
leading  thought  throughout  his  lectures  is,  that  the  Irish 
don't  know  how  to  govern  or  legislate  for  themselves  ; 
that  for  them  home  legislation  and  an  Irish  Parliament 
would  be  a  curse  and  not  a  blessing.  In  order  to  prove 
his  case,  he  found  it  necessary  to  enter  into  the  history 
of  Ireland,  and  whilst  the  question  of  Irish  capability  for 
self-government  remains  a  profound  mystery,  yet  un- 
solved by  experience,  Mr.  Froude  has  made  it  tolera- 
bly clear  to  the  American  mind  that  English  govern- 
ment in  Ireland  has  been  a  woeful  and  disastrous 
failure.  Whether  we  Irish  know  how  to  govern  our- 
selves remains  to  be  seen,  but,  thanks  to  Mr.  Froude, 
it  is  clear  that  England  does  not  know  how  to  govern 
us. 

(2)  Mr.  Froude  takes  me  to  task  for  asserting  that 
the  Irish  by  descent  in  this  land  are  14,000,000  (I  take 


230  Appendix. 

no  notice  of  his  total  of  22,000,000),  and  he  quotes  the 
census  of  1870.  The  reader  will  perceive  that  I  do  not 
give  these  figures  as  my  own,  but  only  as  the  surmises 
of  others,  and  as  what  I  heard  people  say.  On  fur- 
ther inquiry  I  find  that  I  am  not  so  far  from  the  truth 
in  asserting  that  the  total  of  Irish  birth  and  descent 
in  this  land  falls  little  short  of  14,000,000. 

(3)  Mr.  Froude  objects  to  my  speculations  on  the 
decay  of  England,  inasmuch  as  I  am  a  British  subject 
in  whom  he  says,  '*  it  is  scarcely  becoming."  I  cannot 
see  it  in  this  light,  and  I  confess  there  are  few  ques- 
tions on  which  I  speculate  with  greater  pleasure. 

(4)  Mr.  Froude  claims  to  be  a  grand  exception  to 
this  rule.  He  has  no  contempt,  but  an  exceptional 
respect  for  the  Irish,  of  whom  he  recognizes  only  two 
classes,  the  peasants  and  the  demagogues.  The  fact 
of  my  not  being  a  digger  of  the  soil  may  explain  Mr. 
Froude*s  manner  of  dealing  with  me,  which  by  the  way 
is  a  curious  illustration  of  his  ^*  exceptional  respect  for 
the  Irish."  How  hard  a  thing  it  is  to  be  insolent  to 
others  (no  matter  how  humble),  without  lowering  ones- 
self!  I  could  scarcely  realize  the  learned  historian,  the 
man  of  name,  the  elegant,  refined  graduate  of  Oxford, 
when  I  read  of  Mr.  Froude  describing  Father  Burke 
as  ''the  raal  thing  as  we  say  over  there,"  or  describing 
an  Irish  chieftain  of  great  distinction  as  *'  the  broth  of 
a  boy." 

(5)  ''  I  do  not  hate  the  Catholic  religion,"  says  Mr. 
Froude.  I  thought  he  did,  and  I  honored  him  for  it. 
If  the  Catholic  religion  were  what  Mr.  Froude  believes 
it  and  describes  it  to  be,  I  should  hate  and  detest  it, 
and  so  should  every  honest  man.     Here  is  Mr.  Froude's 


Appendix,  231 

idea  and  description  of  the  Catholic  religion  (^'  Essay- 
on  the  Condition  and  Prospects  of  Protestantism,'*  page 
134):  **To  sacrifice  our  corrupt  inclinations  is  dis- 
agreeable and  difficult.  To  sacrifice  bulls  and  goats 
in  one  age,  to  mutter  pater  nosters  and  go  to  a  priest 
for  absolution  in  another  is  simple  and  easy.  Priests 
themselves  encourage  a  tendency  which  gives  them 
consequence  and  authority.  They  need  not  be  con- 
scious rogues,  but  their  convictions  go  along  with  their 
interests,  and  they  believe  easily  what  they  desire  that 
others  should  believe.  So  the  process  goes  on,  the 
moral  element  growing  weaker  and  weaker,  and  at 
last  dying  out  altogether.  Men  lose  a  horror  for  sin 
when  a  private  arrangement  with  a  confessor  will  clear 
it  away.  Religion  becomes  a  contrivance  to  enable 
them  to  live  for  pleasure  and  to  lose  nothing  by  it ; 
a  hocus  pocus  which  God  is  supposed  to  have  contrived 
to  cheat  the  Devil — a  conglomerate  of  half  truths 
buried  in  lies."  This  is  Mr.  Froude's  idea  of  the 
Catholic  religion,  and  yet  he  tells  us  he  does  not  hate 
it.     Great  God ! 

(6)  Although  Mr.  Froude  disclaims  this  and  says 
that  he  asks  for  no  such  verdict,  yet  I  must  remind 
the  reader,  that  he  held  up  for  the  admiration  of  the 
American  people  such  men  as  Henry  VIII.  and  Oliver 
Cromwell.  Now  it  is  not  these  men  but  their  princi- 
ples and  policy  which  Mr.  Froude  canonizes,  and  wno- 
ever  endorses  him  is  an  avowed  admirer  and  abettor 
of  religious  persecution  the  most  atrocious. 

(7)  Mr.  Froude  says  that  ''  order  was  growing  out 
of  the  fighting  "  everywhere  but  in  Ireland.  Whoever 
reads  the  history  of  Ireland  fairly  will  perceive  that,  out 


232  Appendix, 

of  all  the  turmoil  and  confusion  of  the  time,  order  was 
rapidly  growing  and  a  return  to  first  sanctity,  at  the 
time  when  the  Norman  invasion  came  to  check  that 
growth  and  to  throw  Ireland  back  into  greater  confu- 
sion and  misery  than  that  from  which  she  had  escaped. 

(8)  Mr.  Froude  takes  strong  exception  to  my  as- 
sertion that  England  was  demoralized  at  this  time,  and 
appeals  to  her  intellectual  and  physical  prestige  and 
power.  I  am  speaking  of  spiritual  demoralization, 
and  the  strange  spirit  of  indifference  which  seemed  to 
possess  so  many,  and  which  alone  can  account  for  the 
action  of  a  Parliament  and  a  people  prepared  to  accept 
every  mad  whim  of  Henry  and  Elizabeth  as  religion. 

(9)  Mr.  Froude  attaches  little  importance  to  the 
letter  of  St.  Anselm.  It  is  not  a  State  Paper.  If  it 
were  some  lying  despatch  of  "the  artful  Cecil,'*  the 
learned  gentleman  would  perhaps  treat  it  with  more 
consideration.  It  is,  however,  important  not  only  in 
itself,  but  as  coming  after  that  of  Lanfranc,  which  shows 
that  the  peacefulness  of  Munster  was  not  the  mere 
passing  thing  which  Mr.  Froude  seems  to  think  a  tran- 
sitory and  brief  lull  in  the  storm ;  but  a  state  of  affairs 
which  was  becoming  the  usual  and  recognized  condi- 
tion of  the  people. 

(10)  This  is  one  of  the  strangest  fallacies  of  the 
modern  school  of  historians  who  "  evolve  history  out 
of  their  own  consciousness.**  We  have  the  clearest 
proofs  that  from  the  days  of  St.  Patrick,  Ireland  has 
ever  been  in  relations,  the  most  intimate  and  loving, 
with  the  head  of  the  Catholic  Church.  It  is  worthy 
of  remark  that  whilst  every  nation  in  Europe  has  at 
some  time  or  other  adhered  to  an  anti-pope.   Ireland 


Appendix.  233 

never  made  a  mistake,  but  with  the  instinct  of  divine 
faith  always  clung  to  the  true  Pontiff. 

(11)  Much  more  proof  might  be  adduced  against  the 
authenticity  of  Adrian's  Bull,  but  what  is  given  suf- 
fices. The  popular  argument  now-a-days  is  that  the 
Pope  had  no  right  to  ^vsi^  away  Ireland,  if  he  gave 
it,  but  as  Mr.  Froude  justly  remarks,  the  Pope,  700 
years  ago,  represented  the  public  conscience.  The 
historian  admits  that  700  years  ago  there  was  such  a 
thing  as  a  public  conscience,  represented  by  the  Pope, 
in  virtue  of  the  agreement  and  acquiescence  of  the 
powers  then  in  existence.  Perhaps  Mr.  Froude  would 
kindly  inform  us  if  there  be  such  a  thing  as  a  public 
conscience  in  existence  to-day,  and  by  whom  it  is 
represented. 

(12)  See  **  The  Cromwellian  Settlement  of  Ireland,** 
by  John  P.  Prendergast.  The  learned  author  asserts 
and  proves  that  the  design  of  the  English  from  first 
to  last  was  to  acquire  all  the  land  of  Ireland  into  their 
own  hands.  Hence  arose  all  the  invasions,  wars, 
settlements,  plantations,  penal  laws,  etc.,  which  have 
made  Ireland  **  the  Niobe  of  nations." 

(13)  Mr.  Froude,  with  more  ingenuity  than  candor, 
explains  this  fact  by  pleading  that  the  dead  Irishman 
and  his  murderer  got  Brehon  law.  Does  the  learned 
gentleman  forget  that  the  Irishman,  John  McGilmore, 
was  in  the  pale,  consequently  entitled  to  English  law ; 
that  he  was  in  the  service  of  an  English  master,  con- 
sequently under  English  law.  Reverse  the  case,  and 
make  the  Irishman  the  murderer ;  would  he  then 
get  the  benefit  of  Brehon  law  ?  Certainly  not.  Bre- 
hon legislation  was  only  recognized  when   it  favored 


234  Appendix, 

the  English  and  covered  their  crimes.  The  Old 
Bailey  lost  an  able  special  pleader  when  Mr.  Froude 
took  to  writing  history. 

(14)  Mr.  Froude  claims  for  the  Geraldines  and 
others  of  the  *'  old  English,"  that  they  were  "  more 
Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves."  It  is,  however, 
worthy  of  notice,  that  in  national  contests  they  were 
not  to  be  trusted,  as  they  generally  sympathized  with 
England,  and  as  a  rule  (not,  however,  without  some 
exceptions)  hated  and  despised  the  poor  Irish  clans- 
men, who  were  so  faithful  to  them.  It  is  a  fact,  that 
in  the  rebellion  of  Thomas,  Earl  of  Kildare,  under 
Henry  VIIL,  the  Irish  chieftains  scarcely  interfered  at 
all,  having  had  for  once  the  good  sense  to  let  the 
English  king  settle  it  with  his  feudal  Anglo-Norman 
lords. 

(15)  For  the  deplorable  want  of  union  amongst  the 
Irish  chieftains  we  have  to  blame,  not  only  the  over- 
weening pride  of  name  and  blood,  but  also  the  old  Cel- 
tic constitution,  which,  however,  favorable  to  free- 
dom, was  not  calculated  to  create  strong  military  or 
united  action.  It  was  of  old  as  it  is  to-day.  A  free 
people  are  not  always  the  strongest,  and  great  mili- 
taSi^y  power  naturally  leans  towards  despotism. 

(16)  Mr.  Froude  is  hard  upon  Shane  O'Neil,  and 
with  reason,  for  that  chieftain  knew  how  to  hold  his 
own.  We  have  it  acknowledged,  however,  by  Mr. 
Froude  that  Shane  was  the  tanist,  and  that  alone 
justified  the  young  Prince's  action  ;  for  the  succession 
was  his  according  to  Irish  law,  and  Con  O'Neil  had 
no  right  to  change  that  succession,  or  that  law,  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  people. 


Appendix,  235 

(17)  The  parliament  of  1689  did  not  attaint  any  land- 
owner for  being  a  Protestant,  but  simply  passed  a  bill 
of  attainder  against  every  one,  Catholic  or  Protestant, 
who  was  in  arms  against  the  king,  or  who  refused  to 
obey  his  proclamation.  To  designate  this  as  persecu- 
tion is  simply  a  fallacy. 

(18)  The  churches  were  desolate  and  ruined  under 
Elizabeth,  simply  because  the  Catholic  clergy  had  to 
fly,  and  those  who  came  in  their  place,  came  only  as 
plunderers.  The  Catholic  clergy  were  driven  out  by 
the  Act  of  Uniformity,  with  which  their  consciences 
would  not  permit  them  to  comply ;  yet  Mr.  Froude 
states  that  the  churches  were  abandoned  because 
Elizabeth  would  not  enforce  the  Act  of  Uniformity. 
Strange  reasoning  ! 

(19)  Mr.  Froude  asserts  that  the  Earls,  O'Neil  and 
O'Donnel  fled,  because  it  was  discovered  that  they 
were  plotting  again.  The  history  of  Ireland  tells  a 
different  tale,  and  speaks  of  a  sham  plot  gotten  up  to 
entrap  them,  fabricated  through  anonymous  letters, 
and  the  like  agencies.  King  James,  fearing  that  his 
reputation  might  be  blemished  by  the  flight  of  the 
Earls,  issued  a  proclamation,  in  which  he  said,  **that 
it  should  appear  to  the  world  as  clear  as  the  sun  by 
evident  proof,  that  the  only  ground  of  these  Earls*  de- 
parture, was  the  private  knowledge  and  inward  terror 
of  their  own  guiltiness."  The  proofs  thus  promised 
were  never  produced^  nor  is  there  a  shred  of  evidence 
of  any  such  conspiracy.  In  the  subsequent  plantation 
of  Ulster,  the  Irish,  according  to  Mr.  Froude,  were 
allowed  to  remain,  provided  they  took  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance.    Cox,  the  historian  of  the  time,  and  others  tel) 


236  Appendix, 

us  that  the  oath  demanded  of  them  was  the  oath  of 
supremacy,  very  different  from  that  of  allegiance. 
Even  then  they  were  allowed  to  remain  only  as  ser- 
vants and  laborers,  holding,  by  precarious  tenure,  small 
portions  of  the  worst  and  most  barren  land.  The  un- 
dertakers were  strictly  forbidden  to  sell  a  rood  of  the 
land  to  **  the  mere  Irish."  **  We  found  the  people,'* 
says  Edmund  Burke,  **  heretics  and  idolaters  ;  we  have, 
by  way  of  improving  their  condition,  rendered  them 
slaves  and  beggars."  ^*  They  divided  the  nation,"  ob- 
serves the  same  great  statesman,  *'  into  two  distinct 
parties,  without  common  interest,  sympathy,  or  con- 
nection. One  of  these  bodies  was  to  possess  all  the 
franchises,  all  the  property,  all  the  education.  The 
other  was  to  be  composed  of  drawers  of  water  and 
cutters  of  turf  for  them."  Mr.  Froude  chimes  in  with 
Hume  and  others  in  praising  James  for  his  legislation. 
**  Parliament  repealed,  simply  and  for  ever,  every 
law  which  had  made  a  distinction  between  the  English 
and  Irish  inhabitants  of  the  country."  If  this  salu- 
tary law  had  been  made  before  the  Irish  were  plun- 
dered, it  would  have  been  better.  "  After  having  des- 
poiled an  entire  sixth-part  of  the  nation  of  their  pro- 
perty, after  having  dispersed  them  here  and  there  as 
suited  his  purpose,  after  having  transported  a  large 
portion  of  them  to  the  wild  wastes  of  Connaught  and 
Munster,  after  having  impressed  into  his  armies  such 
of  them  as  *  had  not  cattle  or  followers  of  their  own,* 
we  are  marked  with  the  absurd  falsehood  that  *  he 
took  them  under  his  protection'  Just  such  protection 
as  the  lawless  pirate  extends  to  the  peaceful  mariners 
on  board  an  unarmed  merchant  vessel."  (Carey's  '*  Vin- 


Appendix,  237 

diciae/')  It  was  but  poor  consolation  to  the  Irish,  after 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  them  had  been  robb- 
ed and  stripped  of  their  property,  to  make  a  condes- 
cending law  abolishing  at  last  the  distinction  between 
them  and  the  English.  James  took  good  care  not  to 
aboHsh  the  legal  distinction  until  he  had  first  estab- 
lished the  social  barrier  that  divides  the  rich  from  the 
poor. 

(20)  I  do  not  charge  Mr.  Froude  with  defending 
Strafford's  administration.  He  has  two  much  of  the 
Roundhead  spirit  in  him  to  do  that.  He  hates  Straf- 
ford, though  he  admires  worse  men.  But  Strafford's 
administration  fell  both  under  Mr.  Froude's  notice  and 
mine,  and  I  felt  justified  in  asking  the  American  pub- 
lic, could  they  approve  of  it.  The  impeachment  of 
Strafford  for  his  Irish  administration  proves  no  love 
for  Ireland  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Froude's  parliamentary 
friends,  but  only  a  hatred  of  the  unfortunate  man,  for 
whose  blood  they  were  thirsting. 

(21)  Mr.  Froude  seems  astonished  at  my  account  of 
the  massacre  at  Island  Magee.  He  says  Father  Burke 
multiplies  the  number  of  the  slain  by  one  hundred. 
According  to  Mr.  Froude  there  were  slain  only  thirty 
individuals.  According  to  Leland  there  were  thirty 
families.  According  to  the  author  of  a  ^'  Collection  of 
some  of  the  Massacres  and  Murders  committed  on  the 
Irish  in  Ireland  since  the  23  October,  1641,"  appended 
to  Clarendon's  ^*  Vindication  of  the  Earl  of  Ormond," 
and  published  in  London,  in  1662,  there  were  three 
thousand  persons.  According  to  the  tradition  of  the 
people,  which  in  a  matter  so  comparatively  recent 
must  carry  some  weight,  there  were   three  thousand. 


238  Appendix, 

Now  of  all  these  accounts  I  hold  that  the  last  is  most 
likely  to  be  true.  Mr.  Froude  knows  nothing  about 
it  and  refers  us  generally  to  Dr.  Reid.  Dr.  Reid  says 
Mr.  Froude  proves  *^  how  little  Leland  knew  about 
it.*'  But  the  author  of  the  collection  published  his 
statement  within  twenty  years  of  the  occurrence,  ap- 
pealed to  living  witnesses,  many  of  them  enemies, 
threw  his  assertion  out  before  the  world  and  in  the 
teeth  of  such  men  as  Sir  Audley  Mervyn,  Sir  Robert 
Hanna,  and  others,  who  would  have  contradicted  him 
if  they  could,  and  yet  his  account  says  Dr.  Curry, 
*'  has  never  yet  been  proved  to  be  otherwise,  nor  as 
far  as  I  have  learned,  even  attempted  to  be  proved.** 

Mr.  Froude  attempts  to  establish  that  Sir  Charles 
Coote*s  cruelties  in  Wicklow  and  elsewhere  were 
merely  retaliation  for  the  still  greater  cruelties  of  the 
Irish.  I  deny  it.  Sir  Charles  Coote  was  rioting  in 
blood  before  the  rising  of  October,  1641,  and  I  have 
given  sujfficient  proof  that  Parsons  and  Borlase,  the 
Lords  Justices,  were  only  too  glad  of  that  rising,  and 
too  anxious  to  extend  it.  As  for  Mr.  Froude's  har- 
rowing description  from  Sir  John  Temple,  it  has  been 
exploded  before  and  I  need  not  linger  over  it.  Tem- 
ple was  so  much  ashamed  of  his  book  that  he  refused 
to  allow  a  second  edition  to  be  published. 


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